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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23730187">The Awakening</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder'>MFLuder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Awakening [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types, Titans (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableist Language, Alpha Bruce Wayne, Alpha Jason Todd, Alpha impregnates Omega, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson Has Issues, Dick Grayson is Bad at Feelings, Gay Jason Todd, Gender Dysphoria, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Jason Todd Has Feelings, Jason Todd Has a Crush, Jason Todd impregnantes Dick Grayson, Jason Todd is Bad at Feelings, Jason Todd is Robin, Kid Fic, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omega Dick Grayson, POV Alternating, POV Dick Grayson, POV Jason Todd, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Protective Jason Todd, Rutting, Society-wide sudden onset of A/B/O dynamics causes tons of surprising pregnancies, Unplanned Pregnancy, omega gets pregnant during first heat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:34:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>30,653</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23730187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It would go down in history as the single most devastating, society-altering act any villain has committed – at least on Earth.</p><p>A story of unintended consequences, love, and two men finally coming around.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson/Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Awakening [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770496</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>360</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Unusual_Bearings_2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/gifts">lorax</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Well, lorax, this fic kind of exploded. So I only hope you enjoy the setting/world creation as much as I did, and can forgive the relatively small amount of sex in it. My brain went horny for pregnancy plot and emotions instead of sex.</p><p> </p><p><b>TW:</b> this fic does not feature a trans!Dick but rather a cis!Dick who has what he considers female parts given to him against his consent. Therefore language, emotions, and dysphoria will reflect that. As well, Jason, a gay man, uses female-coded words when he thinks Dick is intersex and relates them to having sex with a woman, though at no point does he consider Dick not a man. Please keep that in mind before reading.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It would go down in history as the single most devastating, society-altering act any villain has committed – at least on Earth.</p><p>The thing is, no one knew. Not Superman, not the Lantern Corp, not the Titans, not the world governments; not even Batman. There was no grandstanding ala Lex Luthor, no hidden clues like Joker would have provided, no chatter like a common terrorist cell would have left. If any of the other villains knew – Slade or Ra’s or Lex himself – they kept silent in the aftermath. Some of them were even affected, the ones who were in Gotham that night, anyway. </p><p>Superman himself went to Congress to testify against the creation of a registration, arguing that only doctors needed to know one’s second gender status – as it came to be called – in order to better assist their patients. He was persuasive enough, backed by many progressives, and the family members of those affected who had not been in Gotham that night, to lay to rest the issue of registration.</p><p>Future studies, conducted by Metropolis University faculty and medical doctors, only hinted at correlation and absolutely no causation for the stereotypes that had abounded regarding alphas and omegas during the lockdown. Such studies were conducted under the watchful, benevolent eye of those Justice League members who had not been affected. Even post quarantine, Wonder Woman steadfastly refused to let the US government engage in experiments aside from those directed by the FDA. </p><p>It took five years before Congress passed the A/B/O Medical Rights Bill guaranteeing that one’s status fell under the purview of doctor-patient confidentiality. The next year, there was a slew of court cases and the U.S. Supreme Court established that A/B/O status was also protected under attorney-client privileges, except in extreme cases where it could be scientifically demonstrated that the topic of the case was directly linked to someone’s status. Twenty years later, when Batman came out as an omega, the military finally allowed omegas to serve.</p><p>It took another sixty years and two generations of A/B/O population growth for it to become a protected class. This new legislation made A/B/O status as common as gender, race, religion, and treated in the same manner – legally and constitutionally speaking.</p><p>By then, several of the world’s heroes either were A/B/O or had A/B/O children. The most famous was Martha Grayson, Nightwing, leader of the Justice League. Martha was an alpha, her husband part-Super and an omega. The world celebrated the birth of their daughter and the 156th Congress’ passage of the Second Gender Equal Status Act the same day, the two headlines irrevocably tied as Nightwing and Flamebird were two of its most ardent supporters, alongside the current president, Lila Luthor, a beta.</p><p>The cherry blossoms bloomed that day on Capitol Hill, and once home at Wayne Manor, Martha and Jer-El held their daughter as they looked up at Martha’s grandparents, the original Nightwing and Red Hood, and thanked a villain known only as Nightshade for bringing them together.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Awakening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dick wakes up with a start to find himself sweating, the sheet under him damp. Strange, given it is still technically winter in Gotham, though spring seems to be creeping up a bit sooner than usual. He blinks his eyes open and runs a hand through his saturated hair. He glances at his WayneTech watch and notes it is eleven am. He should get up. He wasn’t even on patrol last night - Gotham’s not his town anymore, not like that – so there’s no reason for lethargy.</p>
<p>Yeah, maybe he’d stayed awake to watch the Dynamic Duo soar across Gotham’s neon skyline.</p>
<p>Next to him, Kory snuggles in, her red hair spilling across his shoulder and hers.</p>
<p>Okay, maybe he was up late for other reasons, too.</p>
<p>But still. He should get up. If he weren’t so tired…</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>When he wakes up again, it’s to a concerned voice calling his name. </p>
<p>“Dick? Dick. Get up. <i>Dick</i>.”</p>
<p>He moans when he opens his eyes for a moment, the Gotham daylight unusually harsh on his eyes. He moves then realizes he’s still unnaturally warm and now he also hurts all over. Worse than if he’d gone for patrol. Did he go out? Did he get into a fight he doesn’t remember? What day is it?</p>
<p>“Dick. Thank X’Hal. I was worried you died on me.” Kory’s voice is blunt, almost like she’s joking, but he still detects a faint bit of concern.</p>
<p>Dick moves his arm enough to adjust the blanket to block out the sun. Shit, it feels like the worst hangover he’s ever experienced. “I think I might have. What the fuck happened?”</p>
<p>“What do you mean what happened?”</p>
<p>He groans and tosses off the blanket, light be damned. “Did we go out? I feel like hell.”</p>
<p>He feels Kory’s hand brush over his temple. “Dick. You’re burning up.” </p>
<p>Now Kory <i>is</i> worried.</p>
<p>“Must have come down with something. That would explain why I feel like we went on a bender.”</p>
<p>“We definitely did not. Hell, you passed out on me around one am. That’s early for you.”</p>
<p>He tries to speak, but is overcome with a convulsion of pain, shooting through his gut and stomach. When it passes, he’s left sweating and panting.</p>
<p>“Fuck. I think I have the stomach flu,” he mumbles.</p>
<p>“That’s where you humans spit bile a whole lot, isn’t it. Let me find something.”</p>
<p>He lays there listless, staring at the ceiling of her apartment, rubbing his fingers into his stomach until she comes back with a trash can.</p>
<p>“Best I’ve got. I can carry you to the bathroom if you’d rather.”</p>
<p>Dick shakes his head and then immediately regrets it. “No, I—” He wets his lips. “I’ll just stay here. If you don’t mind?”</p>
<p>Kory, standing in front of him, covered only in his tee from the night before, shrugs. “It’s fine. No worse than a cat. I can’t catch it from you. I am going to go to the store, though. It’s seltzer you humans find calm it?”</p>
<p>Dick tries to smile. If he manages it, he’s sure its weak. “Ginger ale. Crackers, too.” </p>
<p>The pain comes back, and it’s only because he’s fucking Robin – <i>Nightwing</i> – that he doesn’t cry out. He holds his sides, curled up in a little ball until the nausea and pain roll away once more. When it leaves, he’s freezing and quickly pulls the blanket up to his chin again.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” he breathes out, voice raspy.</p>
<p>He opens his eyes, not even having realized he closed them, to find Kory standing there. With a glass of water. “Drink, Dick. You sound terrible. I’ll be back soon.”</p>
<p>His “thank you” doesn’t even make it out of his mouth before she’s already left. At least she put on pants.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>“Dick. It’s not the flu. We have to go.”</p>
<p>Dick lets a cry slip when he wakes up to Kory’s voice, soft yet demanding. It comes through a haze, like she’s far away, even though he can feel her hand on his skin. </p>
<p>It hurts. Everything hurts.</p>
<p>His head is pounding, his skin is on fire, and his stomach, oh god, his stomach.</p>
<p>“Something’s wrong,” he says, even as he flinches away from her touch.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I know. It’s not just you. Something’s wrong everywhere. Come on. Get up. I’m taking you to Batman.”</p>
<p>“I don’t…don’t want…” he tries and fails.</p>
<p>“I know, Dick. But he’ll know what to do. Aren’t you always telling me that? Even when you’re mad at him. Come on.”</p>
<p>He whimpers as she pulls back the blankets. His body is so confused right now, one moment hot, the next cold. He feels like he’s going to puke, but he can’t even manage to gag and his head hurts. There’s a sharp stabbing pain growing in his gut, between his legs, his back. It feels like lightening lancing through him. He couldn’t put up a fight if he wanted. </p>
<p>“I got you, Dick. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>He barely registers anything from there on out. He’s an inferno, hell is <i>in</i> him carving out a space, and even the atmosphere above the smog of Gotham doesn’t help him cool down.</p>
<p>He passes out.</p>
<p>~~~ </p>
<p>“Miss…?”</p>
<p>“Anders.”</p>
<p>“Miss Anders. Can you think of anything he’s eaten? Been exposed to?”</p>
<p>“Nothing. But he’s not the only one. He thought it was the flu. I went to the store and the cashier looked as bad. The place was deserted. Batm—his da—<i>you</i> were the only ones I thought of.”</p>
<p>“Very good, Miss Anders. You, yourself, are well?”</p>
<p>“I’m Tamarean. So far, I’ve never caught a human disease or sickness.”</p>
<p>“Excellent. I presume Master Grayson knows how to contact you, once he is recovering?”</p>
<p>“He knows.”</p>
<p>“Stay well, Miss Anders. I shall have him reach out as soon as he is able.”</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Dick only wakes up once more that day. He can barely open his eyes. Shooting pain travels throughout his body, causing him to convulse. Dick hasn’t been this scared since that moment he watched his parents fall through the net. What is <i>happening</i> to him?</p>
<p>Then a gentle, familiar voice is telling him to lay back, that everything is going to be alright and he accepts it, knows that voice wouldn’t lie.</p>
<p>He sinks back into clean sheets that smell like home, drinking the water Alfred gives him and swallows what are probably pain meds. Dick drifts into sleep once more to the comfort of a warm hand smoothing his hair back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Danger</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The instant he wakes to a gnawing feeling in his gut, he knows something is wrong. Drastically wrong. Bruce can feel it in the air of the Manor, feel it deep in his bones.</p>
<p>He thinks – the drone. That lone drone, flying about Gotham in the night. He’d ignored it, knowing of no plots, having heard no chatter, or received any intel. But it <i>had</i> seemed an oddity, one drone flying about Gotham at one am. Yet, he’d passed it off as one of the many millionaires in Gotham having some late-night fun; harmless, if invasive and annoying.</p>
<p>Instead, now he wonders if the fog that collected in Gotham last night was by nature or design; if it had been the catalyst, or cover.</p>
<p>The longer he stays in bed, the stronger the feeling grows, deep in his body. It radiates from his groin, his guts out. No part of him is immune to the lancing pain, but it certainly is concentrated. He stays in bed for longer than he should, because while Batman knows pain, this is the kind of pain he is most uncomfortable with: caused not by an outside force or his own abstention. Instead, it is profound and inescapable, like one’s bones growing as a child. It has been literally decades since Bruce has felt such ever-present pain, yet the memories of being a ten-year-old boy and clutching his cheek in the middle of the night in hopes of reducing the tooth pain, or of being sixteen and feeling his bones stretch as though he’d been placed on a rack come racing back. That same pain grips him now, unending, almost like he needs to itch his bones, but he cannot reach.</p>
<p>The sheets feel like sandpaper against his skin. He stares at the clock as he begins to sweat – to begin timing whatever process this is – and a switch flips in his brain. A dozen strong smells suddenly accost him.</p>
<p>Himself: he smells of rank sweat, a musky, sharp scent. It’s mixed with the remnants of cologne – the scent he applied two nights ago. It shouldn’t be this strong still. There’s something else, too. He’s changing, in as fundamental a way as the ache in his bones.</p>
<p>The room: stale, leather and wood and mothballs. His nostrils flare, even as another wave of pain passes through him, and he continues his olfactory investigation. The mansion scent is bottomless; he thinks he can smell a remaining trace of his mother’s perfume Chanel No 5, emanating from the furniture he hasn’t replaced after all these years.</p>
<p>Jason: he can tell the young man is also sweating, hurting in his room. He smells hot; he’s running a fever. He smells similar to Bruce’s own scent right now, but tinged with panic and something wild, like a horse before it has been broken in. There’s a trace of pomade and leather and cigarette smoke. Underneath it all, he smells like the salt of tears.</p>
<p>Then—</p>
<p>Then it hits him, like a wave crashing on the surface. <i>Dick</i>. Dick is here and even though he smells of obvious pain, he also smells divine. Like <i>home</i> and light, amber and citrus-based cologne mixed with petrichor. The scent grows stronger with every moment until Bruce cannot recall his own scent or that anyone else is in the house.</p>
<p>Bruce <i>wants</i>.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>This is wrong.</p>
<p>He needs to get up. His sons need him. And Alfred—well, actually, he smells fine, if worried. Bruce instinctively knows that, though his scent is minimal compared to every other Bruce is quickly sorting in his head. But still. The man needs his help. The city needs him. </p>
<p><i>Batman!</i> he yells in his head, one part of him screaming to fight through it while his body betrays him. He’s half out of bed before another flash of stabbing pain pierces his body.</p>
<p>He gives in. Bruce Wayne passes out.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>He wakes again with a growl. He sits up and is instantly drenched in sweat, both dried and drying. </p>
<p>“Sir.”</p>
<p>Alfred is blinking at him, probably startled due to Bruce’s sudden waking when he had not yet made it into the room to actually call out to him.</p>
<p>Bruce can easily make out the crow’s feet around his eyes even from here and his color is pale, his clothes rumpled. It’s the most out of sorts he has seen the butler since Bruce was a youthful man of forty-something. But his visage is also sharper, more defined. </p>
<p>It’s not only him. Bruce takes stock quickly and realizes that all his senses have all been enhanced; he has the vision of a twenty-year-old Bruce Wayne again. Perhaps better. His sense of touch, his hearing.</p>
<p>“The boys. They alright?” he asks, shocked at how gruff his voice sounds. He works his jaw with his fingers, tightness suggesting he’d been clenching his teeth in his sleep, probably from the pain his body was experiencing.</p>
<p>“They are alive. In a great deal of pain,” Alfred answers, not even phased by the fact that Bruce knows Dick is here as well. “As you appear to have been.”</p>
<p>“Symptoms?”</p>
<p>“Master Grayson initially believed he had the stomach flu. However, no vomiting, a constant fever followed by chills, and a deep pain in his body. Master Todd has mostly been feverous, needing water constantly, and complaining of pain in his bones.”</p>
<p>“Sounds like Jason and I have the same symptoms; whatever is affecting us, Dick is different. Dick’s the only one with chills and stomach ache. What about you, Alfred?”</p>
<p>The butler pauses, considers. “I have no symptoms such as the three of you exhibit. As well, Master Grayson was brought here by an alien friend; she too had no symptoms, though she noted she had observed others acting strange and ill in the city.”</p>
<p>“All men?”</p>
<p>“She did not specify, sir.”</p>
<p>“What time did Jason take ill?”</p>
<p>“I heard him tossing and turning around 2am last night, sir. I checked on him around nine am and that was when he complained of the aches and pains. Nothing I’ve given him has seemed to work. He’s been passed out since then. Dick came in around one pm with his friend. She said he woke up sick.”</p>
<p>“Has the Bat signal lit?”</p>
<p>“No, sir. The city is surprisingly quiet. Nothing on the news, though I admit to seeing a different staff today than usual; they mentioned their anchor called out sick.”</p>
<p>Bruce hums in thought. “Alfred, I need you to do me a favor.”</p>
<p>“Anything, sir.”</p>
<p>Bruce drags himself out of bed. There is no more pain, but his body is sore, like he’s been in a throwdown with Clark. There was something bubbling under the surface, too, but he could make it downstairs. Once in the cave, the boys would be safe.</p>
<p>He throws on soft, comfortable clothes that won’t be too restrictive while he passes along orders to Alfred. “Since you appear to be unaffected – and I believe that will continue to be the case given the timeframe you’ve mentioned with Jason and Dick – you will have to manage the Manor and any calls from the Commissioner. I want you to take care of the boys, and do not let anyone else into the house for the time being.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir. Are you going out? Should I prepare the Batmobile?”</p>
<p>“No. I will be staying in.”</p>
<p>“Sir?” Alfred stares at him, incredulous, even as he takes the pile of clothes Bruce shoves at him. </p>
<p>“Is Dick in the Cave?” Bruce knows he isn’t, can smell the petrichor from the west end of the Manor, close to Jason’s cigarette and tear-scent, though overpowering it in Bruce’s nose.</p>
<p>“No. I’ve kept him upstairs so I could be closer to the three of you.”</p>
<p>“Good. Keep him comfortable. I need you to prepare the panic room.”</p>
<p>“Sir?” Alfred asks, aghast. Bruce has never once used the panic room since it was built.</p>
<p>“There’s little time to explain. Please.”</p>
<p>“Of course, sir.”</p>
<p>When Alfred leaves, Bruce walks over to the JL communicator he left on the vanity.</p>
<p>“Batman to Superman.”</p>
<p>“Batman? Are you alright? Gotham is silent today. Is there…you seem sick. Your heart has a different beat. Something has changed. What is going on?”</p>
<p>“There’s not a lot of time to explain,” Bruce says through gritted teeth. His nose is filled with rain and his head is starting to hurt, his brain going fuzzy, even as colors become brighter. “I don’t know what’s happening, precisely. But somebody doused Gotham with something. I don’t know what it is or the continuing effects. It doesn’t seem to have affected Alfred. It’s affected me. I am going into quarantine. I need…” he inhales a deep breath. “I need you to look out for Gotham. If the Joker or someone decides to cash in on this. For all I know, this <i>is</i> the Joker’s doing.”</p>
<p>Clark is silent at first. Then, “I never thought I’d hear the day you invited me back into your city, Batman.”</p>
<p>“It’s not permanent,” he growls, hackles rising. His anger is growing by the minute. No, not anger…it’s a combination of aggressiveness, propriety, and heat.</p>
<p><i>Heat</i>.</p>
<p>“No, I wouldn’t expect it to be,” Clark says, and the boy scout almost sounds amused. “And I’ll do things your way. Minus the violence.”</p>
<p>Bruce growls again, but calms himself enough to say, “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Do you know how long…?”</p>
<p>“No. I or Alfred will call.”</p>
<p>“Alright.” A pause. “I hope…I hope you’re okay, Bruce.”</p>
<p>Bruce rolls his eyes and disconnects.</p>
<p>Five minutes later, he’s standing in front of the panic room. It’s actually a small sub cave in the back of the larger Cave, set with a metal door that responds solely to Alfred and Clark’s handprints, and is thick and strong enough that only Clark can move it by force. The room has been made Batman – and Robin – proof in the instance where something like this happened. It may be extreme measures.</p>
<p>Then again, Bruce can still smell Dick upstairs, smell his sweat, his rising hormones, the same as Bruce knows his own sweat is putting off pheromones.</p>
<p>He will not touch his boys.</p>
<p>“Sir?”</p>
<p>Bruce turns to look at Alfred, who once again is putting off an air of profound concern. He’s glad the man was spared whatever this change is. For his and the boys’ sake. But for Alfred’s as well. The man has been through enough.</p>
<p>“How long, Master Bruce?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” he sighs. “Honestly. If I had time to do tests or research before…but Alfred. I need to be in here. I’m not…safe. Not around the boys.”</p>
<p>“You’d never hurt them.”</p>
<p>“Not intentionally. That’s why I’ll remain locked up for the duration. Gage it based on how Jason and Dick react. Do not let them out of the Manor. If it goes longer than a week, then you’ll need to call reinforcements. I already called Superman. He’ll take care of Gotham. You just be here for Dick and Jason.</p>
<p>“Besides,” Bruce continues. “Once I am in here and not able to hurt anyone, I can pass along the effects, the symptoms. We can work on the problem, even while I’m isolated.”</p>
<p>“Of course, Master Bruce.”</p>
<p>“If I get too violent, if I seem like I might hurt myself, I want you to gas me. Calm me down.” He pauses once more, feeling an itch to touch himself. “And Alfred. You have seen me at my worst. But the worst may yet come. Please do not judge me for what I say or do in there.”</p>
<p>“Never, sir.”</p>
<p>“Now, then.”</p>
<p>Bruce steps in, once Alfred activates the door. He stares at the butler while the man follows lock down procedures. Once the door closes, Bruce takes a deep breath.</p>
<p>Nothing. Nothing but his own growing thick scent. </p>
<p>Bruce leans against a wall and stares into the small cave lit by lights high on the smooth walls. He lets out his breath and sinks to the ground. He feels agitation, aggression creeping into his bones, but for the moment, it is muted.</p>
<p>He’ll definitely need the lube and tissues later, but for now, for now he can relax, knowing everyone is safe from him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Heat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Jason wakes up, the pain has subsided from his body, at least. He feels woozy and a little heated, like he’s suffering a concussion or a bad fever still, but as he opens his eyes, he sees the world in a whole new light. Quite literally.</p><p>The sun is beaming through his bedroom window and the colors of everything around him to the grass outside are so bright as to be almost cartoonish. When Jason sits up in bed and blinks at the city outside the window, he can make out the Wayne Corp building.</p><p>That’s new.</p><p>He glances over at the side table and sees Alfred has left him a few power bars, water and Gatorade. He opens the Gatorade – blue, his favorite flavor – and tries to figure out what the fuck is wrong and why he feels different now. He notices, it’s not only the colors, but scents and flavors he can make out differently. The protein bar, where once it would have been edible, now tastes like chalk and aspartame. The room smells like teen boy – sweat and musk and spilt come – and he feels vaguely guilty for letting his socks pile up for Al to take care of if he really smells like this. </p><p>He's content like that for a few minutes, despite the protein’s bar aftertaste. He feels oddly refreshed, like he’s had a long sleep after a good night of patrol, instead of being sick in bed for…</p><p>He checks his watch.</p><p>Two days, fuck.</p><p>He wonders where B and Alfred are. The house feels empty, silent, except—</p><p>He glances outside. Nope, still sunny. He gets up and walks to the window, opens it. The air around the Manor smells like blazing sun and humidity; a particularly warm spring day. But no hint of rain, either in the air or on the grass. He shuts the window.</p><p>There, again. The scent of fresh rain, hitting the ground. </p><p>He’s not unhappy. That smell has always been his favorite. Growing up, rain always felt like a new beginning, at least during spring. In winter it only added to the cold, and most of the time when it rained in Gotham during the summer, it only added to the humidity, instead of taking it away. But the rare thunderstorm or spring rain brought with it that intense smell when rain hit the concrete and the few green spaces left in Crime Alley, and as a kid, Jason had always felt a sense of hope when it happened. For a whole day, his home wouldn’t smell of mold, booze, and sex, but sheer clean atmosphere.</p><p>His stomach rumbles and he shoves another protein bar down. He’s more curious about where the smell is coming from than finding Alfred to get dinner. He switches out one tank top for another and leaves his room door ajar. He runs a hand through his curls; he’s sure they’re a hot mess after tossing and turning for two days in bed.</p><p>The smell pervades the entire wing but as he goes down the hall, it grows stronger. Right until he stops in front of the door of Dick’s old room. Hmm. He wonders what the first Robin is doing here.</p><p>He knocks.</p><p>There’s a mumbled reply that sort of sounds like <i>come in</i>, so he opens the door.</p><p>“Hey,” he says, leaning against the doorframe, taking in Dick’s appearance. He looks pale, a little sweaty, definitely not his finest moment. Despite that, the arousal Jason always feels around Dick makes itself known and rather instantly strong, like a soft punch to the gut.</p><p>“Hey,” Dick responds, sleepily blinking at Jason. He stretches: his muscles flexing as he rotates his chest, cracks his back, makes a soft exhalation of breath as he collapses back onto the pillows. Jason is reminded of every training video he’s watched of Dick practicing his acrobatic moves, of the few times he’s gotten to see the former Robin in action. The image goes straight to his cock. </p><p>It doesn’t help that Dick’s room reeks of musk and citrus underneath the strange scent of fresh rain. It’s all of Jason’s favorite smells and his curiosity falls away in favor of contentment and desire.</p><p>“You don’t look so good, bro,” he says, taking a step further into the room. He leans his back against the doorway now.</p><p>“I feel better than I did,” Dick says, shoving the blankets down about his waist. “Fuck, thought I was dying for a bit there.”</p><p>“Yeah? Huh. I was sick, too. Been about two days.”</p><p>Dick makes a face. His lips purse and his eyebrows raise when he glances at his bedside clock. “I think Kory brought me here on Sunday so, yeah. Two days.”</p><p>There’s a deep twisty feeling in Jason’s chest. <i>Kory</i>. She’s cool, sure but—</p><p>He cuts off his thoughts. “You think something’s wrong with us? Weird to both get sick at the same time when I haven’t seen you.”</p><p>Dick shrugs. He’s wearing a blue tee that stretches tight across his chest. It’s crept up a little, exposing a trail of hair that leads—</p><p>Alright, seriously. Jason needs to get laid if he’s <i>this</i> into watching the first Robin lounge in bed.</p><p>“I’m sure Bruce is looking into it, if it’s an issue. You seen him?”</p><p>“Nah. Alfred, either. The old man just left me some protein bars. He left you some, too,” Jason nods to Dick’s nightstand.</p><p>“Oh, thank god, I’m starving.” Dick grabs one and rips it open, consuming it in about four bites.</p><p>Jason tries not to whine, especially when Dick’s tongue flickers out to lick up the crumbs.</p><p>“Christ, it’s hot in here, isn’t it?” Dick says, tossing the wrapper off the edge of the bed and then moving to disrobe. Seeing his chest muscles revealed, moving under his skin leaves Jason biting his lip. He finds himself closing the door behind him, stalking further into Dick’s room.</p><p>He crosses the room, opens the window; with the door shut, there’s too much of an intensity to the smell that he realizes now is coming from Dick. It seems that along with his enhanced vision, his sense of smell too is stronger.</p><p>He probably should be worried about it more, a logical voice that sounds kind of like Bruce insists in the back of his mind, but when he turns around from the window, he catches Dick staring at him in a way he’s not used to. Not from Dick, anyway.</p><p>When Dick realizes he’s been caught, his blue eyes flit away. He hums for a moment and then, “Did you change colognes or something?”</p><p>“No,” Jason says, honest. </p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Awkward silence.</p><p>“You?”</p><p>“Me?” Dick asks, looking at Jason again.</p><p>“Change colognes?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Another awkward silence. Jason continues to stand there, arms crossed. “Good talk.”</p><p>There’s something stirring in him and it’s getting harder to concentrate on anything but Dick in his big, messy bed. </p><p>Finally, he bursts out with, “You smell really good,” at the same time Dick blurts, “How are you not dying of heat?”</p><p>Jason snaps his jaw shut and the two of them stare at each other. He can see from here that Dick is sweating.</p><p>“Dick, you feel okay?”</p><p>“You think I smell good?”</p><p>It’s a fucking comedy of errors, Jason thinks as he rolls his eyes, after they talk over each other once more. He walks toward Dick, gets close enough to place the back of his hand on the man’s forehead. It’s one of the few things he remembers his stepmom ever doing that leaves happy memories, memories that suggest she ever cared.</p><p>“Jesus, Dick. You’re burning up. I think you’re still sick. I should go find—”</p><p>Dick’s hand on his wrist stops him. When he looks down, really only a few inches, even standing, Dick’s eyes are almost black, the blue a bright ring. He’s pretty sure he’s seen this look before – but it was always directed at Kory.</p><p>“No, don’t. Don’t get Bruce. I—” he pauses. “Your skin…you feel cool. Will you just…sit here?”</p><p>“Yeah?” Jason says, confused. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you need, bro,” he fumbles, trying not to sound too eager at being invited into Dick’s bed.</p><p>Dick scoots back, making room, exposing the fact that he’s only wearing a pair of gray boxer briefs. Jason sits on the edge, perched, afraid Dick is going to change his mind. The older man moves, leaning into his space, slow at first, one slender hand touching Jason’s forearm, and then suddenly, Jason has a lap full of Dick Grayson. A Dick Grayson who won’t stop wriggling and fuck, that’s going to become an issue any moment now.</p><p>It stops after a minute, though, and Dick’s hot face is resting right on the spot where Jason’s tank dips, exposing his collarbones.</p><p>“This isn’t weird?” he asks, more than a little stunned. He’s beginning to wonder if he should just carry Dick down to the cave. Maybe he’s possessed. Maybe he’s been replaced by an alien.</p><p>But then Dick’s whole body seems to let go and he sinks into Jason, lightly shaking his head. “No, this is…it feels good? I don’t know why.”</p><p>“Shh,” Jason shushes because hell, if Dickie wants to cuddle, who is he to stop it. Maybe Dick is always like this when he’s sick.</p><p>That thought then spawns the image of a younger Dick cuddling up to Bruce like this and he finds himself growling in the back of his throat.</p><p>Dick whimpers and cuddles in closer. Then, his eyes fly open and he looks up at Jason.</p><p>“I don’t know why I did that.” He quickly pulls back, but when he does, a grimace crosses his face. “Oh, shit.”</p><p>“What?” Jason asks, concerned.</p><p>“Just, dizzy. It’s like—” he cuts himself off and leans back in, this time resting his head on Jason’s shoulder. </p><p>He stays there for a few minutes and Jason lets him, keeping his hands folded in his lap. That Bruce-like voice is telling him to get up, get away, find the other men who should be in the Manor, but something keeps him put. He’s feeling…possessive? No, protective. The sight of Dick, flushed in the face and pale everywhere else, his bangs flopping on his forehead instead of gelled or pushed back gives the man an air of softness, something he’s never had as Robin or any time he’s been around Jason.</p><p>Dick turns his face, pressing his nose to Jason’s shoulder bone and he’d swear the other man is sniffing him.</p><p>Turns out, he was. “You smell good, Jason. Like…leather. Tobacco.” He moves his head further, brings his nose into Jason’s neck. “Fuck. I want to lick you. I don’t even know why. Can I?”</p><p>“Yes?” Jason squeaks. Fuck’s sake, he sounds like a virgin, getting asked to kiss for the first time. He’s years beyond that. How does Dick manage to make him feel so much younger, so inexperienced in comparison? It doesn’t seem to be only in matters of Robin.</p><p>He can’t really turn his head and look, but he sees one of Dick’s hands come up and tilt his body enough so that Dick doesn’t have to move. His tongue licks a hot path on his neck, right up the side until it reaches his pulse point under his ear.</p><p>It sends chills down his spine and he’s instantly sporting a semi.</p><p>Dick does it again, followed by with a low, quiet moan that barely makes it to Jason’s own ear, but when it does, he fucking melts. The next time, Dick bites the spot and gasps after, his hand tightening on Jason.</p><p>“Oh, fuck. I’m burning up, but when I touch you, fuck, it’s so much better. I need…”</p><p>Dick starts clawing at him, tugging up his tank top, barely breaking away from Jason’s neck to pay attention to what he’s doing, all done by feel instead, until he forces the fabric between them, and he has to leave Jason’s skin for a moment.</p><p>He throws the tank; it follows the wrapper into the mess on his floor.</p><p>Jason lifts his hands, he thinks to protest, but then they land on Dick’s bare skin and—</p><p>Something <i>wild</i> begins beating in his chest, his body, his groin.</p><p>He finds himself growling, low and deep in his throat, and then he’s manhandling Dick Grayson onto his lap and pulling him in for a kiss.</p><p>It’s not at all what he imagined – and yet it is. He always thought they’d end up fighting and then fucking; at least, that’s what his fantasies are. So, the roughness, the biting scrape of teeth on his bottom lip, the force with which he shoves his tongue in Dick’s mouth, yeah, that all checks out.</p><p>But the way Dick curls into him, wraps his arms around Jason’s neck, his thighs clamping down tight. How he uses his thumb to force Jason’s face up and chase after Dick’s lips. None of that is part of what Jason’s ever considered and it’s one thousand times hotter than a single fantasy.</p><p>Everything is spinning so fast. He clenches his hands on Dick’s thighs, dizzy with desire and suddenly feeling as hot as Dick seems to be. Every touch is liquid fire; like hot wax dripping down, burning for a split second before it becomes a warm line that teases the skin underneath.</p><p>Dick is still mouthing at him, alternating between licking his neck and kissing Jason. “How do you smell so good; how do you taste <i>so good</i>?” he’s mumbling, and Jason preens.</p><p>His hands shift from Dick’s thighs to his ass, pulling the other man in more, pressing their equally hard erections together. It’s an intoxicating combination; the scent and taste of Dick surrounding him, the feel of them slowly grinding together, the way Dick’s breath sounds in his ear.</p><p>Soon, though, his erection is feeling the need for less fabric in the way, and Dick seems to anticipate that, getting up off his knees to shove his underwear down and under his cock, his ass. Then he slides down, shoving at the bedsheets along the way, and yanks Jason’s shorts out from under his ass. He shoves them off the bed, too, looking at Jason’s cock the whole time before bending back down and shoving himself in between Jason’s legs, ass up in the air and cock dangling.</p><p>It’s a very good-looking cock, long and straight, a darker dusky color in comparison to the rest of his body. It hangs heavy between his thighs that are dusted with light brown hair. When he looks up at Jason, his face has that happy, mischievous grin it does when he’s about to fight someone who has clearly underestimated him. It’s the hottest expression anyone has ever given to Jason.</p><p>He starts to bob his head down, but Jason gets a hand in between them. “Do you, have you even done this before, Dick?”</p><p>Dick stares, licking at Jason’s fingers that hold him back. He nearly caves then. “Afraid you’re going to deflower me, Little Wing? I won’t break.”</p><p>“That’s not…aw, hell,” he groans. He moves his hand, sliding it into Dick’s thick hair instead as the other man bends and takes the tip of his cock into his mouth.</p><p>“Shiiiit,” he lets out, the word spanning a moan of pleasure. Dick’s mouth is hotter than his skin, wet, and he starts sucking right away.</p><p>Pleasure uncoils in him and he swears he grows harder in Dick’s mouth. Dick bobs a little far and chokes, drools a bit, but he barely pulls off before he goes back down. His eyes don’t even meet Jason’s and he would feel a bit uncomfortable about that, except for how Dick is moaning around him, seemingly thrilled to be there.</p><p>He wishes he could see those baby blues, though.</p><p>His other hand comes up to stroke at Dick’s face. Down his erudite nose, around his eye, fluttering over his eyelashes, over his ear, tracing his thick eyebrow. Down to his mouth where he holds Jason, scraping over two days of scruff. When he inserts his thumb into Dick’s mouth, the other man finally looks up at him.</p><p>He looks fucking <i>high</i>. There is intense want reflected in his eyes, aided by the tears at the corner from him forcing himself down. He pulls back, keeping Jason’s thumb in his mouth for a moment before completely pulling off with a nip of his teeth. “Fuck, Jason. You’re so thick. I can barely get you down. I’ve never had that before.”</p><p>Jason’s face reddens; he can feel the heat in his cheeks. “Is that good?” He’s normally arrogantly confident, but this is fucking <i>Robin</i>.</p><p>Instead of answering, Dick slides up his body and captures his mouth in a kiss. He squirms on Jason’s lap, his hand moving to jack them off together. His lap feels wet. Dick must be a leaker. He looks down and sees precome dripping from the smooth head of Dick’s cock. It looks stunning next to Jason’s whose cock is thick and veined and more pink than anything, sticking out of a base of curls.</p><p>“I want you to fuck me,” Dick says, sitting back on his lap. For the first time since he started sniffing Jason’s neck, he looks unsure. “I just…Jason, you feel so good. And I feel…empty.”</p><p>Fuck,” he hisses, his hips thrusting up into Dick’s grip at the words. It’s his fantasies come true only it’s real, somehow real, and he is burning up inside, lust causing him to tremble, to pant, to want to fill that emptiness with no thought for anything else.</p><p>“Yes, yes, Dick, let me. I’ll make you feel so good.”</p><p>Jason leans in to kiss at his throat. He ends up biting it, leaving marks that will turn into full-blown hickies tomorrow, but Dick doesn’t stop him, and Jason doesn’t want to stop. He’s wanted Robin, <i>Dick</i> for so long, and it’s finally in his grasp.</p><p>As good as Dick’s hand feels around them, Dick is still panting in his ear about being filled, dirty little half phrases that have Jason pressing his fingers deep into Dick’s skin, wanting to leave marks there as well as his neck. He gets leverage and flips them over so that the taller man rests on the pillows, arching his neck as Jason kisses down his body.</p><p>The closer he gets to Dick’s gorgeous cock, the more flushed he gets, the more intense the smell of Dick is. It’s almost earthy, that rain scent combining with sex and body musk from two men who haven’t showered in a few days and spent their time sweating in bed. It’s pungent, but Jason finds he doesn’t mind it. He scrapes his teeth over Dick’s abs, feels the other man’s hands tighten in his hair before moving to clasp the bedframe.</p><p>Jason moves quick after that, Dick’s moans goading him on until he finds the source of his arousal, his cock standing up straight in the air. But when he spreads Dick’s legs, what he sees next surprises him.</p><p>Dick not only has a cock, he’s got a dripping cunt, too. It’s pink, almost red on the edges and it’s tucked so neatly under Dick’s cock, it’s only getting this close that anyone would notice. The lips are puffy, swollen with blood, and so, so wet.</p><p>He strokes Dick’s cock once, twice, noting how both his cock and cunt ooze out precome.</p><p>“I didn’t know,” he mumbles, moving in closer. He pulls Dick’s legs up over his shoulders. His feet still rest on the bed because the bastard’s so damn leggy and tall, but he’s even more gorgeous spread out like this.</p><p>Jason looks on, curious. He’s known he was gay since his first crush in third grade. He’d been old enough to know to hide that in Crime Alley, to hide it from his father, but it was only a year later when he was able to put words to the feelings he had for his male classmates while they all expressed the same for the girls in their class.</p><p>He had his first boyfriend when he was thirteen, lost his virginity at fifteen, and sucked cock for pay when he was seventeen. He’s never seen a woman’s genitals aside from a few misplaced clicks on porn vids. Certainly, never this close or this aroused.</p><p>Then he rethinks. A cunt he might have, but Dick was no girl, so Jason supposed he still hasn’t seen a woman’s genitals. </p><p>His brain’s a little confused, but his cock isn’t, and when he looks down further, Jason’s torn between finding the soaking cunt or Dick’s obviously tight asshole more enticing. His mouth is literally watering at the scent.</p><p>“Didn’t know what?” Dick asks above him. He’s trying to guide Jason’s mouth to his cock, but Jason refuses, more intrigued by how his cunt’s edges flex as Jason begins to mouth at the soft skin on his thigh. He licks a scar on Dick’s hip and is rewarded with a breathy whine. “That I fuck men sometimes?”</p><p>Maybe Dick isn’t comfortable talking about it. He won’t press. It’s new to Jason, but he thinks he can figure it out. He moves up slightly, removing Dick’s legs from on top to under him again, until he’s hovering over him. Dick’s hands change positions to help support him. </p><p>“Oh, Dickie, I don’t care. It’s hot. It’s you, what do I care.”</p><p>“What—what are you talking about?” Dick grits out, even as Jason is tracing his cunt with two fingers. He’s so wet it’s leaking out of him. Without any resistance, Jason is able to slowly push those two fingers into Dick, to gather his slickness on them, to search for a g-spot, if Dick has one.</p><p>It must feel good at least because Dick clutches his biceps, pushes his hips into Jason’s and lets out a moan before panting into his ear, “Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”</p><p>“I won’t,” Jason breathes, intoxicated by the way Dick shifts, clings to him, moans in his ear. His scent is overwhelming, and he knows, somehow, that it’s filled with pure need.</p><p>He continues his action, crooking his two fingers in Dick’s cunt. The harder he rubs, the more wetness he finds, and he thinks to himself, for a brief moment, that if this is how a girl feels maybe he <i>has</i> been missing out, before he shakes his head and thinks, no, it’s just Dick. He wants to bury his cock inside the other man, feel his tightness and slick directly on him, know how Dick clamps down, if he can get him off with his cock like he seems to be doing with his fingers. </p><p>He continues the motion, one arm braced along Dick’s hip, the other shoved up his cunt, all while Dick’s graceful and strong hands squeeze his arms, his legs tangling with Jason’s. Jason wants to get friction on his cock, but there’s something about Dick that takes all his focus. The way his head tilts back, how his eyes flutter closed, how he’s rocking with the motion of Jason’s thrusts.</p><p>“More,” he says, and his legs come up around Jason’s hips.</p><p>Jason pulls his fingers out and slides three back in, locating that same spongy area he had before and Dick’s voice grows louder and louder, demanding him to go faster, harder.</p><p>Jason watches the first Robin shake apart on his fingers, arching his back and coming, stunningly, both around his fingers with a fresh wave of slickness and from his cock, come releasing in strands that fall onto his lower abs and groin until his cock is connected to his belly by strands of pooling white fluid.</p><p>He watches as Dick comes down, and as he does, he brings his fingers up and into his mouth. Eating pussy is not something he ever thought he’d do, but it’s Dick, and fuck, he tastes good and the way his eyes following Jason’s mouth as he does is burning hot.</p><p>“What—?” Dick starts, but then Jason shifts and leans down so that he can reach his cock with his mouth and begins to lick up his come and he cuts himself off, eyes rolling back. “<i>Fuck</i>, Jason.”</p><p>“That’s the idea, I think,” Jason says, curving his lips up in a mischievous manner that’s been known to tempt other men before. “You okay with that?”</p><p>Dick’s chest heaves and one hand moves from his arm to tangle in Jason’s curls, encouraging him to continue licking. “A few days ago, no.”</p><p>Jason stops, silence roaring through his ears, pulls his head up. His body is aching, but he won’t—</p><p>Dick presses his head down again, wriggles his hips. The sentiment is obvious, but Jason still holds back.</p><p>“It’s not…” Dick says, looking frustrated. “I’m here, with you. I want this right now. What else matters?”</p><p>Jason shoves down the way that makes him feel like shit, how nothing he does will ever match up to Dick Grayson, first Robin, perfect circus guy. Instead, he looks right at Dick, not doing anything despite the way Dick’s growls of frustration are simply heightening his aroused state, waits until Dick finally looks back at him and says, “Unless it’s an enthusiastic yes, it’s not a yes. So, yes or no?”</p><p>Dick pulls on his hair again, this time tugging him up, not pushing him down and Jason goes, only to find himself swallowed by a kiss filled with passion and heat and want. Dick greedily shoves his tongue into Jason’s surprised mouth and proceeds to fuck it with his tongue. There’s some of the talent he felt earlier, but it’s also sloppy, barely constrained. He grows harder and can’t help grinding his cock onto Dick’s thigh in response.</p><p>When Dick lets him go, he gets out, “That a yes?”</p><p>“That’s a fuck yes. Now <i>fuck me</i>, little Robin.” </p><p>Jason lets his concerns go. Grins. He can work with this.</p><p>He hefts himself off of Dick, brushing a stray piece of hair from his face, and pulls Dick up off the bed. Surprisingly, the older man lets him. When Jason tilts his head so he can look at him, Dick looks blissed out. He barely keeps his head up, but his mouth keeps begging Jason and his hips keep searching.</p><p>“Yeah, okay, babe. This way first, huh? I can tell you need me in you; need a big cock filling you up?”</p><p>Dick claws at Jason’s back as he slams the man against the wall along the side of his bed. He doesn’t think about anything as he does, just gives in to the blinding arousal he feels, the smell of Dick cloying around him, the feel of his hot ready body. He pushes into Dick.</p><p>The other man lets out a high cry and <i>shakes</i>. Calls out, <i>Jay!</i> His nails dig in even harder as he rides out Jason’s slow thrust.</p><p>Once he’s all the way in, Jason lets out a sob and presses his forehead to Dick’s collarbone. God, Dick feels <i>so good</i>. Like sin and heaven combined; the heat, the warmth, the sheer tightness of his cunt. It’s like he’s never been fucked despite the way Dick just took him like a champ. It’s like they were made to fit together.</p><p>After a moment of composing himself so he doesn’t immediately come, he begins to move, in and out, real languid like he’s got all the time in the world. He looks up at Dick, sees the way his hair is falling in his eyes, how he’s biting his lip to keep from spilling noises, but he’s looking right at Jason.</p><p>“You’re gorgeous, Dick,” he says.</p><p>“Jay,” gasps Dick, and like that, a slow and rough fuck against the wall, they both come.</p><p>Jason can feel his come leaking out of Dick and that thrills him to his toes. Almost gets him hard again.</p><p>When he can move, he brings them both back to the bed and collapses onto it, sideways, Dick on top of him. He doesn’t pull out.</p><p>They don’t stop fucking then. After what feels like only a few minutes, Dick begins moving on his lap again, teasing and tightening around Jason until he grows completely hard, and then Dick begins to move up and down on his cock. Jason focuses on helping him, hands on his thighs and ass and hips, gripping tight enough to leave fingerprints like a stain while Dick pinches his own nipples, fucks his fist fast until he’s spilling over Jason’s chest.</p><p>“Everything about you is perfect. Your hair, your brain, your ass, your cock, your cunt.” He breathes it into Dick’s nape, scraping his teeth over the tendons hidden under his hair. Something in him is feeling the urge to bite, to claim, but a single braincell of logic holds him back. Sexual biting is fine, Dick hasn’t objected yet – if anything he turns into each one, rubs himself against Jason every time – but the way Jason’s teeth are itching to <i>really</i> bite, to make Dick bleed, that needs to be discussed.  </p><p>The third time they fuck, Jason flips Dick over and preps his asshole, fingering Dick to another orgasm, finding his prostate. He’s in awe of, first, how Dick seemed to luck out and get all forms of pleasure spots, and second, how high his stamina is. He doesn’t seem to get over sensitized, or if he does, he hides it well, just thrusting back, grabbing at Jason’s ass with his hand, asking for more, always more. His ass is even tighter, though lube and Jason’s come are enough to slide his fingers in there easy after his third orgasm, and he goes slow despite Dick’s protests. Jason’s third and Dick’s fourth orgasm is mind-blowing, both men collapsing to the sheets after. </p><p>Jason caresses Dick’s skin, traces moles and scars, and falls a little more in love with each imprint that has been left on his body. Dick isn’t coherent for a while and he starts to think he’s broken him, even as his own cock is demanding attention again. He idly wonders if someone broke into the house and doused all the Gatorade with Viagra, but dismisses it because, what the fuck. It’s just that he’s never had this many orgasms in so relatively little time and been ready to go again. And yeah, it’s Dick, but unless the man’s genitals are magic, like <i>actual</i> magic, it still doesn’t explain anything.</p><p>Dick eventually ends up rutting his ass back against Jason’s cock and it’s time for round four, five? Jason’s lost track. He only hears Dick’s cries to be filled, that he’s still missing something, feels his hot breath on his face and skin.</p><p>It goes on and on. At some point Dick throws him on the mattress and sucks Jason off, half gagging, but seemingly happy to be a sloppy drooling mess, just like his ass and cunt.</p><p>Jason has Dick sit on his face, shoving his tongue in his pussy, his fingers in his ass. Having this much to work with is tiring, but he fucking loves it, loves how responsive Dick is, how he looks drugged just from good sex, how he still begs for more.</p><p>They fuck again, this time in missionary because Jason wants to actually watch Dick’s face as he comes, and it doesn’t disappoint. His eyebrows pinch, his mouth drops open and the man cries a silent scream as he orgasms once more, this time from the dual pleasure Jason’s getting better at, of fucking his g-spot and jacking him off. This time, his legs slide open just a little more after, wider and looser on Jason’s cock and he finds himself slipping further inside with just a little pressure and then he’s coming, a grunt that probably would sound pained to anyone else, but it’s pure pleasure as he comes and comes and comes and just doesn’t stop. Even Dick starts to cry out that <i>it’s too much, how much come does Jason have, fuck he’s full</i>. </p><p>Dick’s body squeezes down on him, almost massaging his cock. How is Dick still this tight? He feels so small, Jason can’t even pull out and they lay like that for some time, Jason’s cock shoved up his pussy while they both catch their breath and Jason whispers things quiet enough, he doesn’t think Dick hears. Tells him, louder, how he’s so good, feels amazing, how he’s the best sex Jason’s ever had, and the words simply cause Dick to flush and squirm more on his cock.</p><p>Eventually, Dick relaxes enough that Jason can slide out, and when he does, the scent of them has him drooling and growling. He immediately delves down between Dick’s legs and he starts pushing the leaking come back into the other man, licks at him, fucks him with his tongue until Dick is crying out for him to stop after he brings him to orgasm again.</p><p>They finally fall asleep, but when Jason wakes up, Dick is sucking his cock, his fingers teasing at Jason’s hole. He comes like that and then rims Dick, head deep in his ass crack, shoving his tongue as far as it will go while he jacks off that long, beautiful cock, cups Dick’s small balls.</p><p>They fuck in missionary again, Jason’s cock in Dick’s pussy while his fingers are teasing his prostate, their lips dragging against each other in an open-mouthed kiss because both need to breathe, but something brings them back. Dick is limp in his arms, but he keeps muttering encouragements, tells Jason to come in him again, fill the space that is so goddamn empty and so Jason does and once more they end up stuck together.</p><p>The cycle continues: fuck, fuck again, drink some liquids, fuck, sleep. They never seem to get hungry and while Jason’s mind is craving real, undisturbed sleep, his body is always horny and ready to go again and Dick matches him, round for round.</p><p>The bed is a disgusting mess, come and slick and lube, but none of it matters to Jason. It smells like Dick and sex and a little like home and it comforts him when he finally passes out for good.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Regret</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next time Dick wakes, he feels warm and comfortable. Protected. Completely fucked within an inch of his life in the best possible way.</p>
<p>He turns over and finds himself staring into Jason’s light green eyes. This close he can see little flecks of brown in them and it explains why they don’t stand out as bright compared to Kory’s. They’re soft, for once not full of either smugness or simmering rage. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the kid has some deep feelings for him.</p>
<p>Still, he is pretty in a way that shows he hasn’t reached his maturity yet. Sure, his muscles are coming in and his shoulders are broad, but he’s still on the thin side despite Bruce’s training. His shoulders have freckles on them that make them seem young. His stomach, though it has defined muscles, is still covered by the remaining traces of baby fat making it soft to the touch. Hell, everything about Jason is soft, like he coats himself in lotion, only his chapped lips and calloused fingers the exception.</p>
<p>“Mornin’,” he says, a shy smile on his plump lips. Dick feels the memory tingle in the back of his brain of Jason being a fantastic cock sucker. He hopes it comes back to him in vivid detail. Those lips were designed to suck cock – something he thinks Jason knows when he catches Dick staring and his smile turns predatory. “See something you like, Goldie?”</p>
<p>Dick grunts and shoves at the younger man but allows Jason to cuddle in close. When he does, he feels a sharp pain on his neck.</p>
<p>“Ow,” he mutters.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Jason responds, not sounding sorry at all. “Looks like I bit hard. You just smell so good, Grayson.”</p>
<p>Dick wants to retort with the same thing, but he holds the words back. Did he say them once already? He doesn’t need Jason getting the wrong idea from this. Whatever the hell happened, he didn’t plan on it and there won’t be a repeat.</p>
<p>Jason bites him again, teeth stinging, and then mouths at the spot, kissing the pain away.</p>
<p>Alright, maybe a repeat performance. But as long as Jason knows it’s only about the sex.</p>
<p>Dick laughs to himself; he was supposed to be the great one in bed – all his girlfriends had said so and Roy, before – but here he was, the one getting dicked down by the guy who replaced him as Robin, who was eight years younger than him.</p>
<p>Dicked down, oof. Freudian slip.</p>
<p>That said, Jason looks pretty content, so he supposes his reputation is intact, even as a bottom. He supposes he should thank Kory for that.</p>
<p>Speaking of…</p>
<p>“How long have I been here?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Here?” </p>
<p>“The Manor. I remember being sick and Kory must’ve brought me here. Then after that, there isn’t much until you showed up at my door. I remember us talking but…”</p>
<p>Jason shrugs. Dick watches the mole right beneath his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. He slides half on top of Dick, kissing his way up his neck, pressing into what must be bruises if the small pain is anything to go by. It feels good enough that he doesn’t push Jason off.</p>
<p>Fuck, how does he smell so good?</p>
<p>“I was sick, too. Woke up feeling better, but all my senses were on high alert. It smelled like rain and I followed it, found you. Then you looked at me and asked how I wasn’t hot, and you said I felt good…”</p>
<p>“And you just had to have me?” Dick asks with a raised eyebrow, chuckling.</p>
<p>Jason blushes, pink spreading across his cheeks and down his pale neck. It’s sweet. “Something like that,” he mumbles into Dick’s throat.</p>
<p>They continue on like that for a while. His stomach rumbles and he seriously considers just how long it’s been since he last ate, but he’s comfortable here. They lazily make out despite morning breath, and Dick lets Jason’s hands wander. His own rake down Jason’s back, landing on his ass. He wonders if Jason bottoms. He doesn’t have to, but Dick wouldn’t mind; he’d take it if it were offered. Their actions are unhurried, almost sensual in the soft grey daylight coming in through his window.</p>
<p>Eventually, Dick pulls back. He’s feeling so well used, his cock has barely risen yet. At the same time, he’s now craving Jason’s touch anywhere on him. Maybe his cock in his ass again. Dick doesn’t have to orgasm to feel good. </p>
<p>A thought occurs to him. “Did you…did you call my ass a cunt last night?” Dick asks, pieces of yesterday coming back to him. </p>
<p>Jason looks at him, curly bangs in his eyes, but Dick can still see his eyebrows are raised. “No?”</p>
<p>“I mean, I’m not judging. I was clearly into it. Just, unusual.”</p>
<p>Jason leans over him, propped up on one elbow. His expression still shows confusion, but the path his free hand trails down Dick’s body is anything but. It cuts a direct path down between his pecs, down to tease his abs and then to his cock and he can feel himself stirring…only Jason’s fingers dip down further and they settle in between his perineum and his asshole and that’s intriguing too, until—</p>
<p>“I was calling your <i>cunt</i> a cunt. I mean, I didn’t ask what you call it, and I’ve never been with someone who was intersex but—”</p>
<p>That’s when he feels Jason’s fingers curl <i>inside</i> him, and they’re not inside his ass. Several things happen in that moment: one, he feels wet, slick inside where Jason’s fingers rest and his thighs are damp, almost sticky; two, he thinks <i>intersex?</i> Dick isn’t intersex, he’s one hundred percent nothing but penis; three, holy fuck, he has a <i>vagina</i> and that was not there before; and four, his thighs clamp closed, tight around Jason’s fingers which only spurs on his revelation and terror because it feels really good, but <i>he’s not supposed to feel that way</i>.</p>
<p>Performing moves Bruce would be proud of, he untangles himself from Jason, scrambling away from his searching fingers and crawls up onto the pillows before reaching down with his own and finding that yes, he indeed has a body part he’s never had before.</p>
<p>He must look as upset as he feels because Jason pulls back, hands up in the air. Concern reads across his face. Maybe a little bit of wetness in his eyes, too, like he’s upset at Jason’s rejection. “Dick, are you okay? I’m sorry if I upset you. Should I call it something else? I didn’t mean to trigger anyth—”</p>
<p>“<i>Jason</i>. Jason, I don’t have a vagina.”</p>
<p>Jason tilts his head, stares at him incredulously. “I mean, you do, Dick. Your fingers are on it right now. I fucked you in it last night. You were begging me to—"</p>
<p>“Jason, I’m not intersex. I’ve never had a vagina. Just a cock, and—”</p>
<p>His cock right now is in a sad state, too, completely soft unlike a minute ago. He looks down and sees its soft shape dangling between his thighs, resting right on balls that are smaller than they used to be and a slit that opens into his body.</p>
<p>“But if you’re not—” Jason’s eyes widen. “Oh, fuck.” Then harsher. “Fuck, <i>fuck</i>. Fuck!”</p>
<p>Dick whimpers, clutches at his lifeless penis, just to reassure himself it’s there. Then he grabs at the blanket, yanking it out from under Jason’s leg. He might have seen everything last night, <i>used</i> it all last night – and Dick remembers now, remembers a desperate need to be filled, to have a cock in him, but something more even, being insatiable – but that doesn’t mean he needs to see it now.</p>
<p>He’s hit by another memory and his head falls into his open hands where they rest on his covered knees. “It’s not just me, Jason. Do you remember anything—”</p>
<p>“I <i>don’t</i> have a vagina, Dick.”</p>
<p>“No, but—” He takes a deep breath, tries to calm the panic inside him. “There was something different about you, too. Don’t you remember how much you came? How you kept…fucking me and couldn’t pull away? I mean, I thought you were simply still hard but…”</p>
<p>Jason shudders. “Yeah, I. I remember. You asked for more and I—”</p>
<p>Dick knows he’s blushing, even though he’s never once been embarrassed about sex before, not even during his fumbling first time with Babs.</p>
<p>In a frenzy, Jason whips off the sheet and looks down at himself. As he does, he lets off a deep scent of sex and musk, and something unique, salty, but not like semen. It’s enticing. Dick can’t help but stare, either. The current Robin is thick, even soft. He’s clearly a grower in terms of length because he’s almost cute now, a few inches long, though he was anything but small when they had sex. </p>
<p>There, around his cock, at the base, above his balls, a thicker ridge. Dick watches as Jason touches it, gentle, tentative. Even in Dick’s panic, something in his body reacts to Jason’s blunt fingers on himself and he feels a shiver of lust down his spine, even as thinks he might never have sex again. </p>
<p>“Dick. This is…this is a knot.”</p>
<p>“A knot?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Yeah. You know, like a dog. I grew up in Crime Alley, there were always stray dogs. And when it was heat season, you could sometimes see their big balls and their knots. It’s from wolves. Keeps the bitches full until they’re pregnant.”</p>
<p>Sudden realization dawns on Dick and he scrambles out of the bed and to the bathroom. He turns on the shower, burning hot, and jumps in. He immediately starts scrubbing down and despite being terrified of touching a body part that isn’t his, he shoves the soap bar up there, heedless of anything he’s learned from Bruce or the women in his life, even the logical part of himself that says soap isn’t going to kill sperm.</p>
<p>When he’s done, he still feels dirty and his stomach churns. He ends up on the floor of the shower, watching what little he’s consumed in the past several days come up and wash away. Outside he can hear Jason freaking out, calling his name, even a hesitant <i>babe</i> that Dick instantly hates, but he can’t move, and he doesn’t want to see Jason. Jason and his <i>knot</i>. Jason and the scent he gives off that smells like <i>home</i> and a questioning <i>mine?</i>, even though he’d never given more than a passing thought on what fucking the kid might be like prior, and even then, only when he was mad or Jason was trying to show off, trying to act like…like <i>an alpha dog</i>.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know how long he sits there, clenching his arms around his knees, but when Alfred pulls back the curtain, the water has gone cold and he’s shivering.</p>
<p>The butler holds up an oversized fluffy towel and his eyes are soft, understanding. “Come now, Master Richard. Let’s get you warm, and then we can figure this out.”</p>
<p>Dick’s so grateful, after stepping into the towel, he ends up clinging to the man who has been as much family to him as his dead parents were, and Alfred lets him sob.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>It turns out, the sex he and Jason had wasn’t yesterday. In fact, they’ve been going at in that room for three fucking days. Fucking for days. <i>Three</i>. Even with everything else going on, Dick is shocked, maybe even a little impressed, by that. Talk about marathon sex.</p>
<p>It also means, that the Plan B Alfred procured immediately for him, probably isn’t going to work. Not that they know if it would have worked before anyway. Or if Dick can <i>get</i> pregnant. Just because he’s got a sudden vagina doesn’t mean he has anything else to go along with it, or that anything would be viable given he’s spent twenty-seven years of his life being entirely male.</p>
<p>Once Alfred has him dressed in comfortable, baggy clothes and down in the Cave, he finds Jason and Bruce waiting. Jason looks miserable, dressed once more in his usual hoodie and jeans and Bruce looks…disturbed. </p>
<p>“What <i>the fuck</i> is going on?” he asks, channeling his confusion and panic into anger.</p>
<p>Bruce, eternally calm, even when he’s deeply bothered, shakes his head. “We need to run tests, Dick. On both of you. All of us. I can’t be sure until then.”</p>
<p>“Meaning you have a hypothesis now,” he responds, crossing his arms.</p>
<p>“I had some time to think while I was in the panic room,” Bruce concedes.</p>
<p>The panic room. Fuck, has that ever even been used?</p>
<p>“What Jason told me, provided some further evidence.”</p>
<p>“What did Robin tell you?” he sneers. He ignores the way Jason shrinks in on himself, looking smaller in the hoodie that drowns his body.</p>
<p>Bruce doesn’t blink. “That it appears he has a knot. That you have gained female genitalia. I also debriefed him about what occurred between the two of you.”</p>
<p>Of course he did. </p>
<p>“What about you?” Dick asks. “You gain a cunt overnight too? Or is it only me who is so lucky?”</p>
<p>“I did not.”</p>
<p>“Well?” Dick waits.</p>
<p>Bruce sighs. “In our discussion, I have been able to collaborate Jason and my experience’s. He and I have reacted in the same manner. I was able to notice something was wrong and put myself in the panic room so as not to hurt anyone. I did not want to act out aggressively given my skills.”</p>
<p>“If you knew, why didn’t you lock us in our rooms?”</p>
<p>“Dick. You would have both been able to easily escape your rooms, if you had wanted to. I only have one panic room.”</p>
<p>“You could have warned us, told us to separate—”</p>
<p>“I only suspected, I did not know. If anything, I assumed you two could control yourselves.”</p>
<p>Dick’s eyes widen. That stings. </p>
<p>Jason finally uncurls from himself, his eyes blazing. “<i>Fuck</i> right off, Bruce. Don’t you dare put this on us. At least not on him. You don’t get to blame him for what happened, I’m the one who, who…” His voice goes shaky and he instantly shrinks again.</p>
<p>Dick’s still pissed but this isn’t right. “Hey, Jason. Little Wing. It’s okay. You didn’t know. You didn’t do anything wrong, either, if I didn’t.”</p>
<p>“I fucking raped you, Dick,” Jason says, bitterness and anger coating his words.</p>
<p>“I recall you asking me. I think <i>I</i> was the one trying to get you on <i>my dick</i> at that point. I said yes.”</p>
<p>“Then how come you can barely look at me, Grayson?” Jason rages.</p>
<p>“Fuck <i>you</i>, Jason! I’m having my own crisis over here. At least you didn’t fucking change gender or sex or <i>whatever</i>. I’m pissed because of what happened to me, not because of what you did when I wanted you to!”</p>
<p>“Boys!” Bruce says forcefully. </p>
<p>It shuts them both right up.</p>
<p>“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Bruce sighs. “I’m sorry, Jason. I certainly did not mean to suggest your…response to whatever changes we’ve been going through was either of your faults. If my own brain had not been so clouded, perhaps I would have come up with a better solution. But I too was affected, and I only ask that we move forward from this, knowing none of us meant for this to happen and agreeing that no one is to blame for what appears to be biological urges.”</p>
<p>“I’m fucking civilized, B. I <i>should</i> have been able to control myself. Should’ve known Goldie would never do that in his right mind.”</p>
<p>“Master Jason, you will stop this self-pity right this moment,” Alfred cuts in.</p>
<p>All three of the other men turn to look at him, stunned.</p>
<p>“Master Dick has said he consented. Likewise, while we are all civilized men here, being unable to control an urge that you have never once prepared for is not a failure. We do not know how powerful this is or isn’t, whether it is a one-time thing or not. And we shall not know until you, frankly, get over yourselves, and begin a scientific study to find out what exactly has occurred, as well as the investigation into who caused it.” </p>
<p>With that, Alfred snaps his jaw closed, begins pouring tea into four cups from a tray beside him, and when he finishes, primly sits down in a chair.</p>
<p>They all simply stare until Bruce clears his throat and takes a cup. Jason and Dick follow suit.</p>
<p>“Alfred is not wrong. As usual. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. I suspect that we were all exposed to an ecological change factor on a wide scale. We are not the only one to suffer changes. My technological and medical sources are all saying the same thing. However, it does appear to be isolated to the city of Gotham. I spoke with the League immediately upon exiting the room today; no one else, none of the suburbs even, have experienced such changes. </p>
<p>“So far, there seem to be three reactions: some, like Alfred, did not experience a change. Perhaps that is age-based, perhaps not. Those like Jason and myself, have developed…a knot. Others, like yourself, have developed what appears to be a vaginal cavity.”</p>
<p>Dick winces. His fingers itch to wrap around him, to hide his shame. Instead, he simply crosses his arms over his chest, hoping he succeeds in portraying calm.</p>
<p>“Perhaps most intriguing, is that such changes have occurred not only for men. There are cases of females growing penis-like genitalia with knots. Given this, I hypothesize that whatever agent was dispersed, it is not restricted to one sex. Likewise, in no case has it taken away one’s birth genitals; women who have gained phallic genitalia did not lose their wombs, and, I suspect based on what Jason told me, you have not lost your manhood. </p>
<p>“I think the agent instills more animal-like qualities. That is to say, a better sense of smell, vision, pheromones, and sex drive. With the addition of this change, we have become baser, less in control of our bodies and in ways humanoid biology has not acted since we evolved from Neanderthals. </p>
<p>“However, as I said, this is only a hypothesis. I do not know the form the agent took, I do not know its effects. We’ll start with a basic set of scans today: MRI, CT scan, ultrasounds. I’ll do blood and urine samples.”</p>
<p>Bruce sighs once more and places his cup on the desk. He runs a hand through his hair and then leans his elbows on his knees. After a minute of silence, he looks up at Dick and Jason, taking in both though they stand far apart.</p>
<p>“I let you down. I let the city of Gotham down. All of my resources and I had no idea what was going on. I must have missed something,” he hisses, clenching his fists.</p>
<p>“We’ll figure it out, B,” Jason speaks up. He’s refusing to look at Dick, but he’s got some of his spirit back, his shoulders having straightened out and a spark in his eyes. “You trained us, and we’ll solve it. You’ll find a cure, I know you will.”</p>
<p>“What if there is no cure?” Dick asks, feeling weightless, fading. Like a ghost of himself.</p>
<p>No one has an answer for him.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Two weeks later, Dick sits on the end of his bed in Wayne Manor, unable to ignore the memories it stirs up, staring at a printout from the Batcave computer. There’s been many tests that have furthered Bruce’s hypothesis, though they’re still no closer to finding out who did this to Gotham, or even the ultimate effects.</p>
<p>None of it matters, though. Only the two words on an otherwise blank sheet of paper.</p>
<p>Pregnancy: <i>Positive</i>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Pregnant</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Bruce shows him the outcome of the pregnancy test, Jason is shocked. He’s so shocked, he goes silent and just sits in the chair Bruce quickly offers him.</p>
<p>“Pregnant?” he says, like questioning it will mean Bruce will realize he said the wrong thing and correct himself.</p>
<p>Instead, his mentor only nods, solemnly. “We knew, after those initial scans that the agent caused fundamental changes to Dick’s biology. His body physically grew a womb, practically overnight. Astonishing, if it weren’t so unsettling. A miracle, if it had been given with consent.”</p>
<p>Jason nods. He can imagine someone who wanted a baby, who wanted to carry a child and didn’t have the right…plumbing, so to speak, being happy with such a medical advancement.</p>
<p>But Dick didn’t want a baby. Didn’t ask for a womb. It was all forced on him and this complicates everything. Dick hasn’t said more than five words to him since that first day in the Cave. It’s not that he’s actively rude to Jason, only that he finds a way to always be just leaving or already gone from a room, even when Jason tracks him down.</p>
<p>Because Jason can track him down. In other tests, they’ve found that Bruce, Jason, and Dick all release pheromones. It explains the scent that emanates from all of them, from Dick’s petrichor, to Bruce’s woodsmoke and bourbon, to apparently his own smell of leather and sea salt. Their descriptions line up, but neither Alfred – who can smell them, even if he does not produce his own overwhelming scent – nor Bruce seems to get it as strong. </p>
<p>Jason doesn’t tell them that Dick also smells of <i>home</i> and <i>mate</i>.</p>
<p>Mate. Because that’s the conclusion that comes from this. Essentially, they’re all acting like a mockery of a wolf pack. Alpha, omega, and beta. Batman has gone and gotten blood samples from sources willing to share, some saliva he’s taken without consent, and he’s even stolen samples from the hospitals also trying to figure out what’s happening to the Gotham population. The pheromones show up in alphas and omegas, and the same genital and body rebuilds that they’ve gone through are reflected in Gotham at large.</p>
<p>Jason hasn’t said Dick feels like mate, but when Batman came back from several interviews, and Jason snuck a peak at his notes, he saw someone referring to how now their husband smelled like theirs, that it brought to mind the word <i>soulmate</i>. Jason put two and two together and knew he wasn’t alone. He doesn’t know how it works, when Dick clearly wants nothing to do with him, unlike the couple in Batman’s transcripts, but it’s there anyway. </p>
<p>Fuck. He’s nineteen and his new senses are telling him he needs to <i>wife Dick Grayson</i>.</p>
<p>Yeah, he’s not about to share that with the class.</p>
<p>It all adds up to Jason being able to smell Dick, though, to try and force him into a corner to talk, and likewise, Dick is probably using his enhanced sense to avoid Jason.</p>
<p>But now he’s confronted with a result that means he and Dick <i>have</i> to talk.</p>
<p>“Pregnant,” he says again.</p>
<p>Bruce stares at him. He reaches out his hand, comforting on Jason’s shoulder. “You know the ultimate decision is up to Dick. But I admit to being curious. What would you have him do?”</p>
<p>Jason stares right back. He licks his lips and swallows, throat dry. He thinks of the mothers forced to bear children they didn’t want in Crime Alley. He thinks of the pain he’s seen in others when they miscarried. He remembers his stepmom’s face every time she got drunk and looked at him, how she said she wished she could get pregnant because then he wouldn’t matter, Ray would let him go and they could start over, without Jason as a reminder that she wasn’t Ray’s first choice. And he thinks of a baby with Dick’s eyes and his hair; a scientific marvel because two men shouldn’t be able to bear a child with both their genes.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” he eventually settles on.</p>
<p>Bruce nods and then lets him be.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Three days later he’s finally able to catch Dick by surprise, testing out Batman’s scent blockers. Batman hasn’t been able to patrol the city, concerned villains would easily trace him, given away by his scent. Many of the famous villains, locked in Arkham, ones like Joker and Scarecrow, escaped being doused, apparently too far on the outskirts of the city. But Bruce doesn’t know where Slade is; the last rumor placed him in the city for a contract. There’s no telling if the agent would have affected his meta body given they’ve determined none of the aliens were, but Batman can’t risk that kind of exposure. No doubt, new villains would soon arise as well, to take advantage of the chaotic mess Gotham is currently in.</p>
<p>Dick steps into his bedroom, sighing and rubbing at his neck absently. He jumps when Jason closes the door behind him.</p>
<p>“How did you—?” Dick looks panicked, like a cornered animal. His hands grip his elbows, a new gesture he’s been making since the morning they woke up. Jason hates seeing Dick express any lack of confidence. It makes his heart ache and his alpha senses go into protective mode.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Jason says, and he means it. “It was the only way I could get you to be in a room with me.”</p>
<p>“How…?” Dick asks, waving a hand at Jason and his neck. It’s the easiest place to find scent markers, especially when clothed.</p>
<p>Jason turns his neck and lifts up a few curls. Right behind his left ear is a white sticker that looks like a scopolamine patch. “Scent blockers. Bruce is beta testing them. Well, testing them. Although I guess it’s alpha, omega, and beta testing.” He grimaces at himself. “This one’s doing okay. Yesterday you were still able to scent me.”</p>
<p>Dick sits on his bed. He appears resigned.</p>
<p>“We didn’t know how you’d react. With…” Now it’s his turn to wave a hand vaguely. “Bruce is looking for an omega who isn’t pregnant. For safer testing.”</p>
<p>Dick sighs, looks out the window. His scent goes sour. He looks just like Dick Grayson, if a bit more tired, purple bags under his eyes. No one would ever think he had a new womb, that there was a fetus growing inside him. “Get to the point, Jason.” </p>
<p>“We need to talk about this.”</p>
<p>Dick looks at him, his eyes as hard as stone. “We don’t need to discuss anything. It’s my body, I get to decide what to do.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Jason says, hands up in surrender. “Shit, I’d never tell someone what to do with their body. It’d be pretty hypocritical of me.”</p>
<p>Dick’s eyes soften a fraction, turn curious.</p>
<p>“Never mind,” Jason says. He’s not looking to bring about his side hustles on the streets into this conversation. “I just think we should talk. I want…” he bites his lip. “God, this is fucking insane, isn’t it? I’m just your replacement and you were just starting a new job in a new city with a new name. You’re with Kory, and now after one night of what B is calling ‘heat-induced’ sex, you’re having to contemplate an abortion.”</p>
<p>His arms fall to his sides. He feels defeated. He turns to go because Dick’s right. It’s none of his business. He only contributed DNA; Jason means nothing to Dick and he’s not the one carrying a baby in a body that was male until last month.</p>
<p>Dick stops him. “Wait.”</p>
<p>Jason pauses back still turned to Dick.</p>
<p>“Come here,” the other man sighs.</p>
<p>When he turns back around, Dick is sitting cross-legged on the bed. He tilts his head to suggest Jason sit.</p>
<p>Jason goes, but he picks the furthest spot, right on the very edge of the bed, and tries not to think about how the last time he did that, he ended up with Dick in his lap, kissing him. He picks at a piece of lint.</p>
<p>“I’m not with Kory.”</p>
<p>His head startles up at that. “But she brought you here—”</p>
<p>“She’s my friend. My teammate. We have good sex. But we’re not dating.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Jason says. His fingers have unraveled a piece of thread, now. “That’s…good? I guess it means you don’t have to ask her or let her know…?”</p>
<p>“No one outside the Manor knows, Jason. And they won’t, depending on what I decide.”</p>
<p>Jason nods. “Can I…Can I ask what you <i>are</i> thinking?”</p>
<p>Dick turns his steely blue eyes on him. The staring contest goes on long enough, Jason thinks Dick is simply shutting him down, waiting for him to leave. He refuses to flinch.</p>
<p>Dick ends up sighing. “Hey, come here, little wing. Take that patch off, too.” He scoots back onto his pillows and hold his arm out.</p>
<p>Jason slowly peels off the scent blocker. Then he crawls up the bed to Dick’s side, feeling less like an alpha and to-be father than a child. When he gets under Dick’s arm, the other man leans down and sniffs at his neck.</p>
<p>“That’s better. You smell like you.”</p>
<p>Jason wants to roll his eyes, make a snarky comment that will sting Dick as much as his words have hurt Jason lately. Instead he opens his mouth and ends up saying, “That’s good?”</p>
<p>Dick nods, burying his nose deep in Jason’s curls. “Never realized it, but leather, smoke, guess those are my favorite scents.”</p>
<p>Jason tries not to let his body give away the fact that he is pleased. It seems he didn’t succeed when Dick snorts and pulls back.</p>
<p>“And the sea. You always smell most strongly of that when you’re happy.”</p>
<p>They lapse into silence for a while. Dick tilts his head and Jason takes him up on the offer, scenting at the nape of his collarbone. He licks the spot once and then cringes, waiting for Dick to yell at him, but the other man just sighs.</p>
<p>“Talk, huh,” Dick starts, clearing his throat. “You know, when I was a kid, my parents would tease me whenever I got into trouble or made a mess. ‘Richard,’ they’d say, ‘one day, when you have children, remember this moment.’ And, smart-ass ten-year-old me would say, ‘I’m never having kids’ and then do something stupid like slide down Zitka’s trunk into the music pit, knocking over the women who were using it as a changing space. </p>
<p>“So, you see, I never really thought about kids. I mean, yeah, I guess as I’ve gotten older, it’s occurred to me. Living the American dream, having two point four kids or whatever. But the thing is, this life doesn’t exactly lend itself to babies and marriage. Doesn’t mean we can’t be happy, but families, kids? That takes time away from the job, it adds weak spots. I don’t really want to train robins like Bruce.”</p>
<p>Dick tilts his head so that he’s facing Jason. Jason wants to drown in his eyes. “Tell me, Jason. How do we – Robin and Nightwing – raise a kid? What if one, or both of us, dies on patrol? How do we raise a kid that’s normal when our lives revolve around Batman? Is it fair to birth a human into this life? It’s one thing, for you and me, taken in when we lost something. But trained from birth? What kind of parent <i>does</i> that? </p>
<p>“None of this is to mention your age. Jason, you’re nineteen. You’d be a <i>teen dad</i>, for fuck’s sake. You really want to be tied down to that?” </p>
<p>“You done?” Jason says, raising an eyebrow. </p>
<p>Dick raises one right back, but he goes quiet, nods.</p>
<p>He starts ticking off his points on his fingers. “How do we raise a kid? We’re Bats. Bruce is a fucking billionaire. We’ve got Alfred. I can’t think of a much better environment than to raise them than with all the resources of the Wayne family. And if there’s anyone more prepared to defend a baby from a villain, let me know and I’ll settle down with them. Is it fair? Maybe not, but it happened. What kind of parent trains their kid to be a vigilante? Oh, I don’t know, Bruce?”</p>
<p>Dick glares at him.</p>
<p>“But maybe that’s part of the problem. You don’t want to be like Bruce. I’ve never understood it. I looked up to you, Robin, to Batman as a teen. You couldn’t know how much I wanted to be you, to be Batman’s sidekick. Batman is cool as hell and he took his kid on adventures and let him take down bad guys. My dad <i>was</i> the bad guy. You worked alongside the cops while I was beaten by them. You have everything, everything I wanted, and you’re pissed about it because you hit a few gangsters too hard. </p>
<p>“So, yeah. I’d be happy to raise a kid who could live in this big ass mansion and didn’t have to sell drugs or suck cock on the streets to feed themselves. Who had parents who loved them, even if they didn’t like each other all that much. Because, yeah, I get it. You don’t like me. You don’t like my attitude or my recklessness. I get that more than anything, you’re probably ashamed you had sex with me, that my delinquent genes are part of this kid’s DNA.</p>
<p>“I don’t care that I seem like another kid to you, that I don’t have a real job in an office during the daytime. I don’t feel too young to be a dad. I saw moms who were thirteen, fourteen. And you know what I thought, a gay kid, when I got to high school and saw those babies? I thought; I’ll never get to have that. Because I’m gay. And the law doesn’t exactly hand out kids to gay men who had to turn tricks and have juvie records, okay?”</p>
<p>Jason’s absolutely wrecked, the words spilling out of him when he didn’t mean for them to, only wanted to emphasize that they had some kind of privilege at least given who Bruce was, and out vomited his past and his greatest fear and wants. He makes to get off the bed and leave, but Dick’s grip stops him, tugs him in, his scent going soft, his throat making a trill-like noise, concerned and comforting.</p>
<p>He lets his alpha be calmed by its omega’s noises, even as he blinks back angry, frustrated tears.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dick starts murmuring, “I’m so sorry, Jay,” he says, and his lips seek out Jason’s and then they’re kissing.</p>
<p>Jason tastes salt on their lips and he honestly doesn’t know who it comes from. He licks it up and into Dick’s mouth, taking in his warm heat, the softness of his tongue and inside of his cheeks, the taste that’s a bit of the mayo from lunch, but also something else. He presses his big lips to Dick’s, tries to consume the other man. They trade soft kisses until both of their faces are dry.</p>
<p>“Was that a pity kiss?” he can’t help asking as he pulls back.</p>
<p>Dick ducks his head. “I mean, you’re not a bad kisser.” He shrugs, pulling his arm out from under Jason and resting his elbows on his knees.</p>
<p>He’s silent again, and then, “I’m scared, Jason. This isn’t my body. I know it <i>is</i>, I feel it, physically, but I’m still detached from it. I go to the bathroom to take a piss and then remember I have a vagina now. I’m eating and then my stomach rumbles and I wonder if it’s digestion or something to do with the life growing inside me. I feel like Frankenstein’s monster; huge, hulking and not quite right. And this thing,” he gestures to his stomach. “This thing is a wraith, a parasite, living off of a body I don’t want, born from some villain’s master plan. If I keep it, I can’t change back. If we find the cure a month from now, but you’ve grown attached, how do I decide then to take back my body? But I <i>want my body back</i>.”</p>
<p>Jason stares. He’s known, but he hasn’t <i>really</i> known, how much this was affecting Dick. He can’t imagine if he’d been the one to wake up and discover he suddenly had the parts of a woman. That kind of horror and disassociation from one’s own body. That kind of betrayal.</p>
<p>“I understand,” he says. He moves out of the bed then, grabbing the patch to bring back to the Cave for analysis.</p>
<p>“Jason,” Dick speaks up, stopping him at the door once more. Jason turns back, the same movement from half an hour ago feeling like it happened a year ago. “You really want it, huh? The baby?”</p>
<p>Jason takes a moment, but he already knows his answer. “I do.”</p>
<p>Dick nods, his hair brushing his eyebrows. “You’d make a good dad.” He pauses, presses a hand to his flat stomach. “I’ll take it into consideration. Okay?”</p>
<p>Jason doesn’t trust himself to speak, not really, but he forces out a, “Yeah, okay,” and then leaves before he’s tempted to say anything more.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Three months in, Jason lays in bed beside Dick, panting from the fucking Dick’s just given him. He means that, too. He might have been the one with his cock up Dick’s ass, but Dick was doing all the fucking. It happens every time and if Jason weren’t so fucking in love with the guy, he’d feel used. Dick always springs it on him, walking into Jason’s room, or pulling him into Dick’s room after dinner and before patrol, throwing him down on the bed and, without even stripping either one of them, Dick climbs on top or demands to be pushed into the bed, and forces himself down on Jason’s instant erection.</p>
<p>Jason never gets to play, to give him the attention he wants to; Dick is always already lubed up and hard. There’s no kissing, absolutely <i>no</i> touching of his cunt, and it feels performative, even as he watches Dick fall apart with orgasm, and shakes with his own. It’s only about satisfying Dick’s pregnancy hormones.</p>
<p>They don’t wear the scent blockers in the house, so he can smell Dick’s pleasure, smell the strange new scent that grows stronger every day that he’s come to associate with <i>pregnancy</i>, but it still lacks that perfect balance of scents from that heat night. Dick continues to smell like <i>mate</i>, but he doesn’t let Jason close to his neck or throat, doesn’t let Jason mark him. Each time Jason’s alpha senses whine like an abandoned dog. It’s strange to get what he wants, but still end up feeling rejected. The sense of <i>mine</i> he’d first had continues to fade and he wonders what happens when it’s gone. </p>
<p>For now, he rests next to Dick who is curled in a ball away from him, smelling of sex and sadness. The petrichor smell is particularly strong, but instead of cleansing or light like when Dick is happy, this scent hangs heavy. Jason longs to touch, to console, but the omega won’t let him.</p>
<p>He stares up at the ceiling. “Dick?”</p>
<p>Dick grunts at him.</p>
<p>“I…” he swallows. “Will you marry me?”</p>
<p>The silence goes on for so long, he thinks Dick’s fallen asleep. But then Dick is moving, fast as lightening, as <i>Nightwing</i>, to sit up and stare down at Jason incredulously.</p>
<p>The moon shines on Dick’s face, highlighting his sharp features that haven’t gained weight yet. His stomach, too, is a perfect round thing, so small, he can still hide it under a sweatshirt. The only thing he’s wearing right now, though, is his boxer briefs, so Jason can make it out, clearly. There’s an amount of cognitive dissonance, knowing that Dick, as a male, shouldn’t be shaped like this. But Jason finds it beautiful and Dick is still ridiculously attractive to him.</p>
<p>He stares right back at Dick.</p>
<p>“Did you just—? Are you fucking serious right now?” Dick’s arms are flailing wildly; his scent changes to more of the citrus notes like it does when he’s excited or surprised.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he responds, simply.</p>
<p>“Why, <i>why the hell</i> would you want to marry me?”</p>
<p>Jason shrugs. He could say so much to that; that he’s loved Dick forever, that he knows Dick is <i>mate</i>, is his, he <i>wants</i> Dick to be mate, that Dick is beautiful, that they’ve made a baby together even if it was on accident, that it’s what people <i>do</i> in situations like this. That it’s what he wants, what he never dreamed he could have. But Dick won’t want to hear any of it. “Seems practical,” he says, instead.</p>
<p>He winces when Dick bares his teeth at him, shoves Jason flat, keeping him in a pin, knees digging painfully into his thighs. “Practical,” he practically growls. He has no alpha tone like Bruce or Jason, but Dick is a scary ass person generally, so it’s just as effective. “No. No, Jason Todd. I will not marry you because it’s <i>practical</i>. I will not marry you because it’s something you saw growing up. I will not marry you because I got pregnant. I will not be that person for you, to treat like a fucking wife when I can still kick your ass three months pregnant and would <i>crush you</i> if I wasn’t. I’m not going to play pretend house with you to satisfy some macho, alpha notion of mating. I’m not a dog and I won’t be your wife.”</p>
<p>He’s full on yelling by the end and if it didn’t happen so often at this point, Alfred would probably come running to find out if they’d killed each other yet.</p>
<p>Jason only nods in response, trying to calm the soft whine at the back of his throat. That sense of <i>mine</i> fades a little more and his alpha mourns.</p>
<p>Dick pants down at him, eyes still blazing. Then he shifts and Jason belatedly realizes Dick is hard again and his pussy is dripping slick onto his stomach. Dick notices too, and he growls once more.</p>
<p>“Now, either fuck me, or get out. And no fucking biting, Jason. I refuse to look like someone’s chew toy.”</p>
<p>Jason strokes himself hard and longs for the rare times when Dick would call him Jay or little wing. He goes to slip his fingers into Dick’s ass hole, see how stretched he still is, but the other man bats his hand away and takes Jason’s cock into his own, holding it steady so he can slide down in one smooth motion, his head tossed back.</p>
<p>The sex starts furious, but as it goes, Dick softens and slows, like he’s trying to show Jason he’s not angry anymore. It’s just as hot, either way and Jason stays hard, his knot swelling until Dick lets gravity do the work and pushes it past his rim. It’s not quite as good as heat sex, but Dick is always tight on his knot and it’s enough to make him come, even as he does his best to keep his hands and nose in safe territory.</p>
<p>Dick eventually collapses, right onto his own come, smearing it across both their chests. He rewards Jason with a kiss, not deep, and almost nearly chaste, but it makes the alpha in him purr, feel a little soothed. His knot won’t go down for a while, so after the kiss, Dick slides his arms out and rests his head on Jason’s shoulder, passing out right then.</p>
<p>Jason slowly turns them over onto their sides, tries to make it more comfortable for Dick. It’s not easing knotting like this, Dick’s legs stuck around Jason’s hips to accommodate the penetration. Dick will be mad at him tomorrow for not forcing him into a better position before knotting.</p>
<p>But then, Dick’s always mad at him and Jason’s just glad he didn’t stay awake to see the tears fall down his face.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Mission</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After months of scientific analyses and contact tracing through criminal channels they find her.</p>
<p>Instead of the usual fighting – in part because she doesn’t even fight back, unlike so many of their targets, it seems none of her schemes have involved anything beyond a yoga or self-defense class – and tying her up for the Gotham PD, Batman and Robin knock her out with chloroform and bring her to an old, seemingly abandoned Wayne Tech building to interrogate her.</p>
<p>That’s where Dick waits. He’s not exactly in fighting form these days. But he’s the one who is most desperate to question the motives behind what’s happening.</p>
<p>He doesn’t even bother to hide himself. When they bring her in, he’s waiting in the cool room just like he did when in Chicago PD. He’s wearing a suit much like he did as a detective. As long as she doesn’t glance below the table, she won’t know at first.</p>
<p><i>She</i> is Tala Adler, a geneticist with the Gotham Genome Institute. She has a PhD in genetics, a masters in biochemistry, and her thesis was on gene expression and reproduction through the aid of biotechnology and genetic engineering. Once they found her, it seemed obvious. However, because Doctor Adler had no connections to know criminals, extreme organizations, or even notoriety within the genetics community – aside from some general beliefs that her research was promising but far off in the future – it took them six months to determine she was the culprit of what was now being called “The Awakening” event.</p>
<p>He’s seen her before; once they suspected her, they put her under surveillance. However, in the bright light of the impromptu interrogation room, her beauty is still stunning. Up close, her dark hair and almond eyes suggest Asian heritage. Her lips are full, her hair thick with salon-worthy curls. Her nails are manicured, maybe fake, and painted a unique purple shade, the same color of her lipstick.</p>
<p>Shoved into the empty chair a little forcefully by Robin, she maintains her composure well. Batman looms behind Dick and she barely blinks. She looks at them, considering. Finally, she opens her mouth, speaking with a soft accent he can’t place. “I’ve got to say, I’m not especially impressed, Batman.” She looks around her, uncrosses her legs and then re-crosses them. She’s wearing very practical clothes for a scientist taken from her lab at eleven at night, but the work pants and blouse do nothing to hide her beauty. “Six months, Batman. And here I heard you were the greatest detective in the world.”</p>
<p>Batman says nothing.</p>
<p>“Were you too affected by the change? Did the big bad bat end up being an omega?” She’s staring down the Batman – it’s almost impressive.</p>
<p>Dick latches onto the word. “Omega. Tell me more about that, Doctor Adler.”</p>
<p>She waves her hand. “That’s my ex-husband’s name. I only kept it because I was already, unfortunately, publishing under it. For now, you can call me Tala.”</p>
<p>“Alright. Tala. Tell me about being an omega.” He does his best to project a calm authority. Good cop, Bat cop.</p>
<p>She smirks at him, painted lips upturned. “I’m sure you boys have it all figured out by now. I mean, you did find me, if a bit later than I expected. Alpha, beta, omega. Three new classifications. Alphas with the instinct to knot and breed anything, to dominate; omegas with the instinct to be stuffed full of babies, to be bred and taken care of like pillow princesses. Betas as the lucky ones who didn’t change.”</p>
<p>Dick suspects a hint of sarcasm, yet her comments seem accurate to him. “Are you suggesting there’s more to it than that?”</p>
<p>“Silly boy,” she says, although she can’t be more than five, maybe six years older than him. He didn’t pay attention to her age when Bruce showed him her file; he only saw her face as someone who could fix him. “Of course, there’s more to it than that. Humanity is really quite resilient, after all. And now, <i>more</i> than half that populace, in Gotham at least, can bear children. Have you noticed the population boom yet? All those omegas who went into heat without knowing any better. Without knowing the one thing they craved would put babies in them.”</p>
<p>“Is that what you wanted, then? More children?” He does his best to ignore Robin’s heated stare.</p>
<p>Tala snorts. “If anything, less people on this planet would be a boon. No, it wasn’t about birthing more babies. Almost the opposite.”</p>
<p>“Tell me,” Dick cajoles. </p>
<p>“How about this. Let me tell you a little story, Batman and friends. A story that starts long ago in the Philippines when my father met my mother during this country’s ‘War on Terror’. He was American and found himself intrigued by the exotic native women. He started playing house with my mother, a young woman, naturally beautiful. Every shore leave or in between his assignments on the various islands, he would stay with my mother. We were a happy family at the start.</p>
<p>“Then, one day, he simply never returned. I was barely a pre-teen at the time, a girl living with her single mother in a predominantly Catholic country; not ideal.”</p>
<p>Tala flashes them a mean shark-like smile before continuing.</p>
<p>“I eventually was shipped off to America by long-distant relatives who held hopes that I could become educated and then return. I attended a university where I developed an affinity for science and math. Cliché, I know. I also met the man who unfortunately would become my husband; my TA at the time and the best way for me to get a green card.</p>
<p>“At age twenty-six I was attending an academic conference here in Gotham and saw a woman. Something about her spoke to me, though I did not know why at first. After all, she had fair skin and fiery hair; she was neither my type romantically, nor scientifically. She was a botanist, not a biochemist. But I found myself catching a glimpse of her nametag and following her into her panel.</p>
<p>“I watched as she presented data that so stunned the audience, that they looked uncomfortable and criticized her harshly, questioning her methods. Admittedly, they weren’t particularly transparent. After, I went up to her, introduced myself as a fellow graduate student, and asked her to lunch.</p>
<p>“There, I heard a fascinating story of perseverance and a strange phenomenon in the city of Gotham: The Batman. We exchanged numbers and emails. Our correspondence continued. We simply clicked. Over time she came to tell me that she was more than botanist. That she actually spoke to plants, that they listened to her. She said she could make plants grow on command and it wasn’t until a year into our friendship I witnessed her do it and believed.</p>
<p>“Then, one day, two years into our time together, after she had passed her comprehensive exams, ahead of her class as I had been, she mentioned her father’s name. Samuel Isley. </p>
<p>“I then understood why she had seemed almost familiar to me that day in Gotham; my botanist friend was, in fact, my sister.”</p>
<p>“Isley,” Batman says. “Your sister is Pamela Isley.”</p>
<p>“<i>Was</i>,” Tala hisses. “Her name <i>was</i> Pamela Isley. Or as you decided to name her, Poison Ivy. All she wanted was a better world, one not on the path towards irrevocable climate change and total ecological disaster. And you called her a <i>villain</i>.”</p>
<p>“She was an ecoterrorist,” Batman says, voice low, but as calm as ever.</p>
<p>“Even Guantanamo is not as bad as Arkham. You put a woman who communed with plants better than people into a dark concrete eight by eight cell and expected her to live.”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t very well let her have access to a means to break out. You know she would have; had she been given even a weed.”</p>
<p>Tala half stands, anger oozing from every bit of her. Even her hair seems almost electric as it swirls about her shoulders. “You killed my sister, as sure as if you committed the act yourself. For that, I sought revenge. I wanted something that would make every man, like my father, like the Batman, question the things they do to women. For every politician out there, who has legislated a woman’s body, for every rapist who has given no thought of leaving his victims pregnant, for every man who has cheated on their wife or girlfriend, who left and went to create a <i>new</i> family. Perhaps now, you will think of the person before you have them thrown away. Perhaps now you will consider the effects of your so-called ‘heroic’ actions.”</p>
<p>“Batman and Robin saved lives that day. Lives your sister would have taken in the name of ‘green space’.”</p>
<p>“My sister never hurt anyone. You can’t know that, without your interference, anyone would have been harmed that day. You reap what you sow. You men never think of the things, the women you leave behind while you play hero and revolutionary.” She sits back down, crossing her legs primly once more, folding her hands on top of each other. She looks directly at Dick. “Now, you will have to. It seems, Batman, even if my change did not affect you as I might have wished, your protégé here was.” Tala tilts her head, eyes knowing as she takes in his face. “Yes, Robin. I know who you are. I don’t care about your identity, so don’t worry about having shown your face. I’m far more interested in your condition.”</p>
<p>She looks back up at Batman. “Perhaps that is for the best. I suspect you’re the type of man who does not care what happens to himself. But those you love…yes, perhaps it worked out for the best after all.”</p>
<p>“You’re crazy,” Dick says, almost in awe.</p>
<p>“Not crazy,” Batman says. “Hurt. Vindictive.”</p>
<p>“I wonder, Robin, is Batman your alpha?” She tilts her head the other direction, dark eyes twinkling with mirth as she stares at the space where the table covers Dick’s six-month pregnancy belly. There’s a small growl behind him.</p>
<p>She laughs, an honest smile on her face and she covers her mouth, wearing a look of pride, almost like she’s a mother finding out she will be a grandmother. “Oh, no. Even better. The new Robin, your replacement. A baby compared to you. I can smell him on you, now.” Her smile grows sharp. “How that must grate. That he becomes an alpha and you end up pregnant. Did you consider yourself straight before, too, Robin?”</p>
<p>Before Dick can respond, his face growing increasingly red, while Jason’s growl becomes steadily louder and more threatening, Batman cuts in, voice deep, commanding, “Enough.”</p>
<p>Jason’s growling stops and Dick instantly feels less anxious.</p>
<p>Tala laughs. “Your alpha voice has no control over me, Batman. I adjusted my own genes, of course, to ensure the…what are they calling it? The ‘Awakening’ would not affect me. I am, essentially, a beta. But one who will not be moved by alpha tones nor omegas pheromones as the rest of them are. I am the sole Gothamite to be unchanged.”</p>
<p>“All we want are answers,” Dick says, trying his best for the calm, persuasive voice he once used on suspects at the precinct. He notes his pheromones rise; it usually helps soothe those around him, makes them calmer.</p>
<p>Tala’s eyes twinkle, like she knows what he’s doing. “I will happily give them. But what then, Robin? What will you do to me once you have the answers? When you know the future of Gotham, and the world? Will you toss me in a cage like Pamela? You will not find me as easy to contain; I do not mind the dark. When my father left my mother, our only place to turn was local rebels. No torture from you, Batman, can compare to living under the Abu Sayyaf.”</p>
<p>Dick holds up his hands, placating. “If you provide the answers we need, the cure, then we can negotiate.”</p>
<p>“A cure?” Her full lips turn up at the corners; this time the smile is not sharp, more pitying. “Robin, there is no cure. That is your first answer. What has been done, cannot be undone.”</p>
<p>A piece of him breaks inside, the last sliver of hope he’d had, that once he bore this child, he could return to his old body. He refuses to let the wetness that burns behind his eyes show, though; his knuckles squeeze the table tight.</p>
<p>The baby inside him kicks, like it knows his distress. Dick takes a deep breath and ignores Jason’s whimper and aborted movement towards him. He didn’t need coddling before and he doesn’t need it now, pregnant or not. He places on hand on his stomach, no longer attempting to hide it, and that seems to calm the baby inside.</p>
<p>“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think there was an easy way to reverse this?” Tala asks, seemingly actually curious. “I changed the genetics of an entire city; there was no going back from that. You all now carry the altered gene and every baby born to a Gothamite in the future will carry it. It will not matter if one parent was not altered. I have created a new subspecies.</p>
<p>“If you haven’t found it already, I attached the altered gene to the X chromosome. That means every man, woman, alpha, omega, or beta will have it. The outcomes are entirely unpredictable; science and DNA are fickle and what nature creates cannot be predetermined. This means two alphas could bear a beta or an omega, as likely as an alpha. Two betas do not guarantee a second gender status of beta.”</p>
<p>“How will we know,” asks Batman, voice still gravely, but without his alpha notes.</p>
<p>She shrugs. “I didn’t grow a lab baby. I have no idea when it will assert itself. There will be no favoring one gender over another.” She looks down at her nails, flicking an imaginary something off. “Isn’t science wonderful?” </p>
<p>Batman steps closer to the table and in that moment, several things happen: Tala stands and places her hand in her pocket, from it she pulls out a handful of dust, blowing it first into Dick’s face and then Batman’s. Neither was prepared and they weren’t wearing masks or rebreathers. Batman howls, a threatening alpha noise and Jason is instantly by Dick’s side, clutching at his arms as Dick feels himself go woozy.</p>
<p>“Robin, get—” Batman breathes out before he begins sinking to the floor. Jason stays locked in place, staring at the doctor.</p>
<p>“A final gift from my sister. From now on, boys, the name is Nightshade. And you will not keep me chained up.”</p>
<p>She runs towards the door and Dick sees Jason go after her, cape swinging until she stops, one hand on the door, poised to move into action once more.</p>
<p>Dick can’t control his body anymore and he feels himself slide out of the chair; limbs locked in some kind of paralysis. The baby moves wildly within him.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>He can’t lose…he didn’t want, but Jason does and—</p>
<p><i>No</i>.</p>
<p>He must say it out loud, or else their connection is that strong, because Jason looks back at him, green eyes concerned as they flicker between Dick and Tala. He’s still in a fighting stance, an edge to him that Dick hasn’t seen in some time, not, in fact, since the first time Jason came crashing through Adamson’s Chicago penthouse window and took down several assassins, saving Dick’s life.</p>
<p>“You better go to him, little one. He’s going to need you now. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt the baby, but <i>he’s</i> not going to feel good.”</p>
<p>The last thing he sees is a flash of black hair through the door of the interrogation room and then Robin’s face hovering over him, worried, visible even behind the mask. Dick’s eyes close, a surge of relief. His alpha is here; they’ll be alright.</p>
<p>He passes out.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Birth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dick is in a private wing of the Gotham Memorial Hospital, under the care of Doctor Leslie Thompkins. The Bats are absolutely abusing the privilege of being Waynes and having a shit-ton of money because the hospitals are still struggling to set up for the birth of children from omegas. Gotham Memorial is the best because, of course, Bruce has funded it. Dick isn’t the only one in the private wing, but he does have his own room, on a different floor. Not too many people even remember that Bruce once had a ward, but it’s better safe than sorry, not allowing too many coincidences between Bruce Wayne and his close family and the Bat brand.</p><p>Dick has been tensed and anxious to the nth degree these last ten hours since his contractions began. It’s a struggle for Jason to not cuddle into his side, to lay his scent over Dick’s in an effort to calm him. All his instincts are yelling at him to take care of his omega, to be there, in the room, kissing and holding Dick.</p><p>But Dick has refused him, his scent sour any time Jason tries to approach. He’s given up, watching from the window into the room, a whine in the back of his throat, feeling rejected because it’s not him in there, but Bruce.</p><p><i>Bruce</i> is holding Dick’s hand, <i>Bruce</i> is wiping the sweat off of his forehead, <i>Bruce</i> is directing the hospital personnel.</p><p>Jason doesn’t feel the anger that comes when other alphas interact with Dick. He knows that Dick and Bruce have settled into a comfortable father-son relationship and so his alpha instinct is no more concerned than if he were watching John Grayson console his son. It’s taken a little while, only in the last three months of Dick’s pregnancy, for Jason and Bruce to come to that unsaid agreement, for Jason’s alpha voice to not growl when Bruce talks about Dick. It helped when Selina came over during her rut, actually knocking on the front door, showed in by Alfred and everything. </p><p>Bruce has taken someone else, doesn’t even seem to be omega-inclined, much less gay, and Jason kind of hates himself for ever considering it, for feeling so aggressive to the man that helped raise Dick even if prior to this whole disaster, Dick would never have agreed to the sentiment that Bruce was a father-figure. The man who gave Jason everything when he had nothing, who let another alpha stay in his house. He knows from their research and reconnaissance that many alphas – even actual father-son ones – haven’t been as stable. It’s a lot to adjust to and Jason finds himself hurting for those alpha sons, and daughters he supposes, who have been cast out by alpha parents.</p><p>So, it isn’t that Bruce is an alpha that bothers him. It’s simply the rejection from his omega. Jason lets his head fall against the plexiglass, hands placed in his pockets. He senses Alfred coming up behind him but doesn’t move.</p><p>The butler places a thin-skinned hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I can’t understand what you are feeling. I am sure your instincts must be…adrift. But I do know this. Master Richard is as confused and hurt. His rejection does not have anything to do with you. Only that this is something he never once considered for himself.”</p><p>Jason thunks his head against the glass gently. He doesn’t want the nurses to force him away for disturbing the patient. “He’s not the only one, Alfie. I didn’t expect to become a dad at twenty. Didn’t expect to end up getting a dude pregnant. Of all the things I thought about when I realized I was gay, it was that I was never gonna have a family the way others did. I figured it wouldn’t happen at all when I was on the streets. Then, the last few years, it was ‘if I survive vigilantism’. Thought I might take in someone like B did with Dick when I was forty. This was not in the plan.” He gestures widely, taking his head off the glass to look at Alfred.</p><p>“Perhaps not, Master Jason. But while I shan’t deny your experience has been difficult – I saw the pain you and Master Bruce were in during your transformations and I’ve seen you struggle with unique issues since – you have to realize, for Dick, this defies everything he thought he knew.”</p><p>Alfred pauses, considering. “In these last few months, I have come to appreciate this ‘Awakening’ as they are calling it, as a mixed blessing. I do not know if it was luck or design or pure wish, but I have noticed, in our data collections, the sheer amount of people who suffered from gender dysphoria who received the one thing medical science had not as of yet figured out how to do. I have also read interviews where a man who wanted children but whose partner did not or who was gay, now is able to. I have seen the positive side, along with the negatives.</p><p>“But in Richard’s case, he has suffered an invasive change he never once considered. Where you are happy because you love him – ah, do not try to lie to me – and because you can have the family you never thought you would; for him, it has all been done without consent. Not that he did not consent to your activities, but to everything else. He is suffering all the emotional effects of a woman who has been raped and forced to bring the child to term.”</p><p>Jason grips his hair. “I didn’t make him keep it. Bruce said, he offered and—”</p><p>Alfred lays a hand on his arm. It actually helps to calm his alpha instincts, his hackles and frustrations dimming to a simmer. “That you did. We all gave Dick a choice. But for him, I do not believe the issue is of carrying the pregnancy to term, but the initial violation. Many Gothamites have begun calling themselves alpha, omega, beta. You will note, Master Dick refuses. He emphasizes that he is <i>male</i>. He only allows Doctor Thompkins to say the word ‘omega’ when it is relevant to what she is doing. As a classification, not a descriptor.</p><p>“As for the pregnancy, Master Dick respects your wishes more than you might think. I believe if you had expressed a desire to abort the pregnancy, he would have done so. But you hesitated. He may not remember right now – in fact I recall Ms. Wayne screaming at Master Thomas and demanding a divorce while in labor, so I think it is quite commonplace to be upset with one’s partner who brought about the cause of the pain of childbirth – but he cares enough for you to make you happy. To carry a child in his male body for you. Please, remember that.”</p><p>Jason feels exhausted. He looks back into the room, watches as Dick stoically stares at the ceiling while his chest and body heave through a contraction, the only sign of any pain the white of his knuckles where he grips Bruce’s hand.</p><p>“I just. Yeah, I love him, Alfie. So much, it fucking hurts.”</p><p>Alfred retrieves his hand and stands with both placed behind his back. “This too shall pass,” he says.</p><p>Jason doesn’t ask if he means his <i>persona non gratis</i> status or his love. He doesn’t want to know the answer.</p><p>~~~</p><p>John Bruce Grayson is born three hours later at eight fifteen pm. He’s seven pounds and six ounces with a shock of brown curly hair and gray eyes. The doctor says they’ll likely turn blue, but it’s unclear as of yet.</p><p>Jason was finally let into the room, scrubbed up and decked in safety gear when the contractions grew in pace and Dick was dilated to ten centimeters. It was another hour after that before John was born, an hour spent in emotional agony. Dick’s scent had been sour, both from pain and from his general disinterest in Jason. Jason had stood as far back as was possible until, near the end, Dick had thrown out an arm, crying out when Doc Thompkins told him to push one more time, and Jason’s alpha instincts had taken over, rushing to Dick’s side, clutching his hands and thus touching his omega when his son was born.</p><p>Now he’s watching while both John and Dick are cleaned. <i>No tears</i>, the Doc says, almost sounding surprised. There’s an unpleasant smell to the room, but honestly Jason doesn’t even care because Dick fucking gave birth to <i>a baby</i> and the fact that his body was never intended for this, just amps up Jason’s awe and adoration. Within minutes, both are cleaned up anyway, a warm blanket thrown over Dick’s lap, and Jason can barely smell the hospital antiseptic over the pheromones both Dick and John are putting off.</p><p>John smells partly like fresh baby, the scent Jason’s known from taking care of a few babies when he lived in the projects as a kid, but he also smells like <i>Jason’s</i>. There’s no describing it; it’s not floral, not wood or orange, or any one recognizable thing. Just, Jason’s. <i>Mine</i>.</p><p>And Dick. That’s it. John smells of that undefinable scent Jason first noticed the night they had sex, their first heat and rut. It’s the smell of them mingled together, without the stench of sex added. Jason and Dick at its purest. He knows he’d be able to find John anywhere in the world, from rooms apart, solely by scent.</p><p><i>Mine</i>, his senses tell him once again, and this time it’s not only about John, but Dick, too.</p><p>Dick, though. He still smells sour. A little exhaustion, a little of that petrichor scent Jason loves, but he knows Dick isn’t happy. His instinct, something both alpha and inherent, maybe, to being a dad, tells him Dick should be happy. That he should smell like blooming roses, not old lady perfume.</p><p>Doc Thompkins hands John to Dick, swaddled in a Batman logo blanket that she brought in because she thought it was hilarious and frankly, Jason agreed. John stops crying as soon as Dick takes him in his arms, looking up at his father with wide eyes.</p><p>“He’s either a beta, or characteristics don’t show up immediately,” the doctor says. “I’m sorry, this is all new to us, obviously. You’re only the second omega to give birth in a hospital where we know how the baby is doing, and that’s not a large enough sample size to know if these babies are betas, or if the second gender will reveal itself later, such as at puberty.” She’s explaining this all to Bruce who nods at her and they begin to discuss the tests they’ll conduct on John – all safe and mostly standard she assures – to find out as much as they can.</p><p>Knowing his son is going to be subjected to Bat medical testing most of his life, though, can’t get Jason down. He feels a happy rumble, almost a purr, deep in his chest as he stares at Dick’s muscled arms holding their son. Despite everything, he feels a sense of family, of a claim. He doesn’t want to give it up. Dick looks ragged, his hair is damp and sticking to his forehead, and their baby’s face is pink and pudgy. He looks a bit like an alien despite the hair and wide eyes, but they’re <i>fucking beautiful</i>.</p><p>“Dick,” he whispers, and gives into the temptation to kiss Dick’s temple, to wipe away his hair from his eyes.</p><p>Dick looks at him, pulling back slightly. His eyes show no emotion besides exhaustion. Their usual bright blue is flat, lifeless. Almost as gray as their son’s. His eyes shift to their son.</p><p>“John,” he whispers, and Jason falls a little more in love. It’s stupid, so fucking stupid, wanting the man eight years his senior, but Dick is beautiful and brave; the first fucking Robin and the sexy Nightwing, even if he’d only been that guy for two months before this all happened. He’s the man who took in a scared teen girl because someone was after her, the original Titans leader. He’s willing to die for civilians and he was willing to bear a child because Jason wanted to be a dad.</p><p>Jason’s so caught up in the moment he doesn’t realize Dick’s attention has returned to him at first. It’s not nearly as heart-in-the-eyes as Jason’s suspects his look was.</p><p>“Take him,” Dick says, voice as flat as his eyes. “Please,” he says, a little softer, and he looks away from Jason. “I’m tired.”</p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Jason says, holding out his arms so Dick can pass John to him.</p><p>John looks like he’s about to scream for a minute but then he takes a big breath, followed by a yawn that’s as big as his face, and he quiets down, one little fist reaching out to do its best to hold onto Jason’s plastic gown thingy, and he falls asleep right then.</p><p>“Dick, I—” he starts, but Dick cuts him off.</p><p>“I said I’m tired. You two should probably have some time anyway. We still don’t know if I’m going to produce milk or not. He should probably get used to you holding him for feeding time, in case.”</p><p>Jason nods. A minute later, he gets the courage to say something else. “Can I kiss you, babe? Please?”</p><p>“Don’t call me that,” Dick says, voice cutting, but he nods. His scent isn’t as sour for a moment, though Jason can tell he’s still unhappy.</p><p>Jason leans in, clutching John harder to his chest, and gets Dick’s cheek for his effort. But, he supposes, Dick could simply have forced him out again. He’ll take what he’s given. </p><p>Dick’s eyes slide closed as he steps back and begrudgingly hands John off to the blond nurse who’s asking for him. “Go get changed,” the man tells him, nodding to Alfred holding his bag on the other side of the glass. It appears Bruce and the doctor have already left. “We’ll bring him to his actual room, you can sit with him there. We’ll bring John as soon as we’ve done our tests.”</p><p>~~~</p><p>Jason wakes up and blinks his eyes open to a blue-lit room thanks to a large moon shining bright over the city. He knows Bruce is out there right now, wonders how much sleep, if any, he got. He glances at his communicator, sees it is three am.</p><p>Dick is solidly passed out in the bed, his light snores too regular to be anything but. John is snug in a medical bassinet, also sleeping, but Jason can’t resist lifting him up and out, resettling into the oversized rocker where he’d passed out earlier, waiting for them to bring John back. </p><p>John’s eyes blink open and he screws his face up to scream, but Jason bounces him a bit, begins rocking, and does his best to release calming pheromones. The control over the scent thing is an ongoing learning curve, but he’s gotten better these last few months.</p><p>“Shh, shh,” he says. “Don’t want to wake Dick, do we. No, he’d be very mad at us.”</p><p>Something works, and John’s face settles out again, eyes opening and staring at Jason.</p><p>Jason wishes he knew some kind of lullaby, thinks about how he has nothing to pass on to his son. His father was a drug-dealing piece of shit and his mom wasn’t even his birth mom. His last name is the only thing he has, but it felt better to let Dick pass along his; he did all the hard work, after all, and the Grayson name means a lot more than the Todd one. He doesn’t have an old toy, a story, a picture.</p><p>So, instead, he talks as he rocks. John politely listens.</p><p>“It’s been a weird day, John. A weird few months, if I’m being honest. You know, you’re one of the first babies born to a whole new…kind of person. It used to be that men couldn’t get pregnant. Well, males couldn’t get pregnant. That’s different. But you, you’re special. You have two birth dads.</p><p>“And your dad. Wow. He’s something special. I want you to know, it isn’t that your daddy doesn’t want you. It’s just been tough for him. He didn’t ask for you, and sometimes that’s really hard. I saw it all the times when I was growing up in Crime Alley. Women who got drunk or high or raped and the bastard didn’t use a condom. Or maybe they did but it broke. Women who couldn’t afford an abortion. Women whose husbands wouldn’t let them go on birth control even though they already had nine babies. Women whose religion wouldn’t let them.”</p><p>John blinks at him, waves his tiny fists in the air before settling back in.</p><p>“Sometimes, those women didn’t want the babies, flat out. But sometimes, they didn’t mind; it was just hard. Hard to find help or money or babysitters. I did it a lot. When my mom was high and didn’t care where I went. I’d skip school to help out the abuelas or the women on welfare. I could read and feed a baby at the same time; it’s not that hard. I was too smart for my grade, anyway.”</p><p>He adjusts, manages to take off his hoodie while still holding onto John, who only fuses a bit. Once stripped, he brings John up, resting the baby against his bare chest. He doesn’t know much about babies this tiny – John is literally <i>hours</i> old – but he listened to Doc Thompkins’ spiel and he knows skin contact is good. He continues to do his best to wrap John in his scent.</p><p>“It’s just gonna be hard for a while. But I’m here. And he’ll come around. He’s going to make the best dad. He loves you; I know it. You’re named after his dad, you know. His dad and his foster dad. Kind of my replacement dad, too, I guess? It’s not the same. B is definitely more a mentor than anything. But I guess he’s the closest thing I have. He took me in even when I was trying to steal from him. That’s kind of dad-like, huh. Forgiving you when you do bad things?”</p><p>He’s rambling. His protective instincts are in overdrive and he’s talking more than he ever does, about stuff he hasn’t told anyone else. Sure, B knows about his parents, but even B doesn’t know Jason grew up watching babies as young as one-year-old while their mommas had meltdowns or went to make rent on the streets. But no one is listening, and John keeps staring at him like he’s the most fascinating thing in the whole world.</p><p>He kisses his baby’s forehead, once, twice. Five times, and he swears he’s not crying. Just more alpha bullshit he’s going to have to learn to control.</p><p>“I’ll forgive you for anything, John. It doesn’t matter what you do or who you are. I’m gonna love you always. And Daddy, he’ll come around. He’ll probably never love me, I get it. I don’t blame him. I was the asshole who didn’t stop, didn’t think, didn’t question what was happening to us. I’m the reason he had to go through this.”</p><p>He traces a finger down John’s features, so tiny and squishy. He’s making little movements with his mouth like he’s searching for a nipple but before he begins to get really hungry it seems, he passes out, letting out the tiniest baby wheezes.</p><p>Jason settles back into the chair, reluctant to let his son go. He makes sure the blanket is wrapped tightly and adjusts his hoodie so he’s covered, and John is snug enough that if he moves, Jason will notice before he gets too far. His scent covers the room, strong and deep enough that it almost covers Dick, who at least smells like himself again, instead of the sour rose scent of the birthing room.</p><p>“I love you,” Jason says as his eyes slide shut, knowing B is out there keeping their upside-down Gotham safe, that Dick smells good and safe and like home, and John is alive, and smells like them.</p><p>He doesn’t even know if he’s saying the words to John or to Dick.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. A New Way of Life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gotham is quarantined for the first year.</p><p>The uncertainty surrounding the changes, and a whole lot of “is it contagious” fear causes a moral panic that the U.S. government responds to by bringing in the National Guard and establishing a perimeter that no Gothamite can cross. For some time, even family members aren’t allowed in; husbands, wives, kids, grandparents desperate to see their loved ones until they realize – with a little Bat help – that organizing together could bring the federal government to heel. The general running Operation Quarantine slowly allows family members in, as long as they sign a waiver stating they won’t try to leave and that they accept any liability and risk if they contract the “The Awakening.”</p><p>The only ones they can’t keep out are the Justice League members. The general, of course, doesn’t know the whys, doesn’t know Amanda Waller has the means to keep heroes like Superman and even Green Lantern out if she wanted, he only knows that the League is allowed in and out without harassment or threat of harm. Afterall, aliens seem to be immune.</p><p>About four months into the quarantine, a bulky package drops on Commissioner Gordon’s desk at the same time a large datafile is received by the hospitals and government offices in the city. It lists out a number of findings regarding The Awakening, from a complex understanding of the pheromones, to the sexual inclinations and capabilities of those whose bodies have been altered. From this anonymous package, Wayne Industries is able to begin testing scent blockers. Its CEO, Lucius Fox, also suggests the pharmaceutical branch will soon begin work on a new drug that would suppress the heats and ruts that omegas and alphas experience; a new form of birth control for a new gender class. Of course, to properly exist on the market, it has to be FDA approved and since no one from outside Gotham and the League are stepping a toe into the city, Fox projects a two-year completion mark – provided the quarantine is lifted in a suitable amount of time.</p><p>Seven months in, the mayor and Gordon are the only ones present on the police station rooftop to hear that the culprit behind The Awakening has been found, goes by Nightshade, and has eluded Batman for the time being. Shortly after, Gotham Genome Institute becomes the leading research facility to study The Awakening, now known to be an alteration to the X chromosome that establishes a secondary gender. The Awakening is irreversible. The files of one Doctor Adler disappear the same day the Institute is given a generous grant by the Wayne Foundation. Together, Wayne Pharmaceuticals and the Genome Institute quickly create a medication ready for testing.</p><p>LGBTQIA+ organizations, in Gotham and without, react quickly to adopt the A/B/O Gothamites into their umbrella. As many trans individuals and gay couples speak up in favor of the changes to Gothamites as do conservatives decrying the change to God-given biology by the meddling of humans and science. The conservatives are loud enough and organized enough to bring a demand for registration to Congress; they want every Gotham citizen and anyone who was in the city those fateful days to be listed on a public document in order to inform future husbands and wives of who and what they might be getting themselves into with such a match. After all, it was only fair that a Central City citizen know if the person they met on vacation was actually an alpha and dangerous, or an omega and prone to creating more A/B/Os.</p><p>The day the registration bill is rejected, the quarantine ends – exactly one year and twelve days after The Awakening.</p><p>What no one else knows, is that, sixteen months after The Awakening, Batman receives a small brown envelope. In it is a picture of Nightshade hanging from her wrists in a dark cell. She’s obviously detained and not doing science for the time being, though her eyes still reflect a fire, and her lips are still stained purple. The leaves outside the bars suggest a tropical location. The back of the picture simply states <i>You’re Welcome</i>, but the handwriting is one Batman and Nightwing would know: Deathstroke.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Forgiveness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A month after John is born, Jason finds Dick in the Cave, trying to squeeze into his Nightwing suit. Something in him snaps.</p><p>“What the hell are you doing, Dick?” he asks, seething, the alpha tone creep into his voice and he struggles to pull it back, unsuccessfully. He keeps his hands clenched in fists at his side. </p><p>“What does it fucking look like? Trying to get into my suit. You can babysit tonight, and I want to patrol—”</p><p>“No,” Jason says, voice sharp. “First of all, I am his father; I do not babysit. Second, you are not going out there tonight.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Dick says, threateningly. “You going to stop me?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Try me,” Dick snarls.</p><p>It’s almost cute, if it weren’t so pitiful. Dick is half stuffed into his costume, clearly unable to fit the rest of his admittedly not-overly-large-but-still-soft belly into the armor. His pecs, once lean, currently are full, like a small-breasted woman. His face has already slimmed down, but even the sit ups he’s been doing every day since John’s birth aren’t enough to make his body recover its former glory that quick.</p><p>“Dick,” Jason says, soothing, now. “You can’t even fit into your armor. What makes you think you can patrol with Batman?”</p><p>“Goddammit!” Dick roars, throwing his blue domino halfway across the Cave. He collapses into Bruce’s desk chair. “I’m fucking useless like this.”</p><p>Jason dares a few steps closer. “You’re not useless, Dick. You just had a baby like thirty days ago. I think it’s okay for you to not be in Nightwing form yet.”</p><p>“Easy for you to say,” Dick spits, voice dripping with bitterness. His scent is as sour as it was in the delivery room. “You go out every night with Batman. You’re helping to make sure Gotham is safe, even amidst this crazy ass shit. And every night, I just lie there, in bed, watching the two of you leave the Cave and fucking nurse!”</p><p>He pauses and if it weren’t Dick Grayson in front of him, Jason would say the other man was crying. His alpha howls, wanting to comfort his omega. He pushes down that sense; after all these months of Dick ignoring him, essentially, his alpha still can’t lose the sense of <i>mate</i> when around him.</p><p>“I can’t…this is why I want my body back. I need to be out there, doing things. I wasn’t made to just wait! To watch some big strong alpha take out criminals while my omega ass does nothing but produce milk.”</p><p>“That milk feeds John. It’s going to make him grow up strong, like his dad.”</p><p>“Yeah, like you, maybe,” Dick says, voice slightly lower in tone, still drenched in acidity.</p><p>It’s a weird, backhanded compliment.</p><p>“No, like <i>you</i>, Dick. I don’t know why Dick Grayson, of all people, is willing to accept some conservative bullshit about what omegas and alphas are. The same people are out there, trying to say we need to register so that we don’t pollute the population. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think our son is pollution poised to contaminate Metropolis’ perfect citizen gene pool.” </p><p>“No, of course not,” Dick starts, but Jason cuts him off.</p><p>“You don’t have to fall into the idea that omegas are weak, or that you are weak, just because you can’t go and risk your neck right now flying across buildings, because you’re a little too chubby to fit into your costume. None of that makes you not Nightwing or not dedicated. It makes you a new father with other responsibilities, <i>for the moment</i>.</p><p>“And if I, an actual alpha, your alpha, doesn’t think you’re weak, why the fuck would you think that about yourself?”</p><p>Dick grumbles. “You’re not my alpha.”</p><p>“You’re right, I’m not.” Now Jason is the one getting heated. “Because you won’t let me be! I don’t mean coddling you or knocking you up again, Dick. I mean, letting me be your equal, letting me help you, to comfort you, to be someone who listens to you. But no, good old <i>Dick Grayson</i> doesn’t need anyone, and second-rate Jason Todd could never be that person, even if you did want it. I get it, Dick. I fucking <i>get it</i>.”</p><p>He turns to storm out, but Dick’s hand catches on his elbow. “Jason.”</p><p>“What? You want me out of the Manor? Fine, but I’ll make sure B enforces custody rights; he’s my kid, too.”</p><p>“What?” Dick says, face reflecting genuine confusion. Jason shakes him off his arm. “I would never…the Manor is your home. I was the one who left. If anyone left, it’d be me. But Jason, I’d never do that to you. I kept John <i>for you</i>.”</p><p>He melts a little. But then he asks, “You’re not still doing it for me, right? You love him?”</p><p>“You moronic teenager—of course I love him! He’s my son.”</p><p>Jason snorts at the insult. He feels ancient these days, especially when he and Dick fight like this. He left <i>teenager</i> behind a long time ago.</p><p>“Dick, I—. Dick. Just because you can’t go on patrol right this minute, tonight, doesn’t mean you never will again. I will be happy to stay at home in the future, hell I bet Alfred would love to cuddle with John for a night if we both went out. It’s never been my intent – nor B’s – to keep you from being Nightwing or a vigilante ever again. Parents go back to work eventually. But in the meantime, accept the…the paternity leave. Take time to get back in shape, to retrain. Spend time bonding with your son; he won’t be a baby forever – or so they say.”</p><p>Dick sighs, heavy. His baby stomach is spilling over the top of his armored pants and it should look absolutely ridiculous, Jason’s sure it would to anyone else, but right now all he wants to do is heft Dick up and carry him to the bed and kiss him all over his softened body. He leans back in the chair, spreading his legs wide, only upping Jason’s arousal level.</p><p>“When did you get so smart, kid?”</p><p>“I always have been; gotta be, to follow in your shoes. But I haven’t been a kid in a long time.”</p><p>“No, I suppose not,” Dick sighs. “I’ll try to remember that. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”</p><p>They stay like that in silence for a bit. Then Jason walks over to Dick and offers him a hand. “Come on. B can patrol alone tonight. Let’s get you changed and sit and watch a movie with John. I bet Alfred will make popcorn.”</p><p>“You could make popcorn, you know. You don’t burn it at least,” Dick says, teasingly.</p><p>Jason shrugs. “Alfred makes it better.”</p><p>“He does, doesn’t he.”</p><p>~~~</p><p>Four months later, Dick and Jason are once more back in the Cave, but this time, Dick fits into the Nightwing suit just fine. <i>Very</i> fine, if Jason is honest.</p><p>He’s holding John who keeps squirming, constantly trying to keep Dick in his eyeline. His cheeks have recently filled out and he’s turned into a little chunk. He’s wearing a Robin onesie that Jason thought was a hilarious way to celebrate Dick’s first night back on patrol. Dick had rolled his eyes, but Jason totally saw him whip out his phone and take a picture of him holding John when he thought Jason’s back was turned.</p><p>“Hey,” Dick says, once he’s completely dressed but for his domino. “Thanks, Jason.”</p><p>“For what?” he asks, distracted by John’s little fists striking at his face while he twists and turns his head to stare at Dick.</p><p>“For supporting me. Helping me get back out there. Every time you sat down here and played or read to him while I worked out or sparred with Bruce…”</p><p>Jason shifts John so that he’s sitting on his hip and doesn’t have to move so much to see his other dad. “You know that’s what I always intended, right? I meant it when I said I wanted you back out there. Dick, it’s what you were meant to do. Besides, I kinda like this little guy,” he concludes, plopping a kiss on John’s head, receiving a bit of spit up in response. “Yes, even when you puke all over me. Even then, you little adorable spit up monster,” he says, in a baby talk voice.</p><p>Dick chuckles, uses the towel on Jason’s shoulder to wipe up John’s chin. Instead of stepping back right away, though, he presses his gloved fingers to John’s face carefully. He boops his nose, causing John to cross his eyes. Seriously, Dick needs to stop being so adorable with their baby.</p><p>Still Dick stays, looking at John, but speaking to Jason. “I’m never going to be the same. Feel the exact same way. But these last few months, training with this body, I feel better. Closer. Hell, in some ways I think I’m stronger now.”</p><p>“You are,” Jason says, sure. “You could probably kick my ass twice over now. I’ll still put up a good fight, though.”</p><p>“I’m sure you would,” Dick says, his voice amused. His scent tinges orange-scented for a moment. Then he pulls away, listening to something Jason can’t hear.</p><p>“Okay, B needs me out there. Some kind of gang activity down by the docks. Now, he’s going to be hungry around ten and—”</p><p>“Yeah, I know. Milk bottled in the fridge, hell, I’ve even got his favorite lullaby cued up in my head. I’m prepared to be kept awake by him all night, too. Not a problem. Go.”</p><p>Dick’s look is unusually soft. He takes a step closer to Jason, one hand coming up to cup John’s head. He wipes at a spit bubble and avoids John’s little grabby hands. Then he kisses John’s forehead.</p><p>Jason tries not to feel left out.</p><p>When Dick looks up, their faces are mere inches apart. Jason gasps, quiet, small. Dick’s blue eyes turn even softer and it’s a strange contrast – dressed as Nightwing but his gaze remarkably tender, eyes the blue of a deep sea.</p><p>Dick closes the gap, brushes a kiss along Jason’s lips. It’s chaste and sweet, something so unlike them. Jason doesn’t close his eyes because he doesn’t want to miss a moment, but they long to flutter shut.</p><p>When Dick pulls back, he’s wearing an awkward smile that is truly out of place given his current costume. “Thanks, Jason. It means a lot.”</p><p>“Anything,” Jason responds, hoping, belatedly, that it doesn’t come out too needy, too anxious. He tries to cover: “I mean, it’s good to spend time with John, just us two. You know?”</p><p>Dick’s expression is unreadable, but his scent curls in Jason’s nose, gentle citrus. “I know.”</p><p>Jason grins. “Now get your ass out there, Nightwing. Batman’s waiting on his partner. Crime doesn’t stop for babies.”</p><p>Dick’s grin is blinding as he picks up his ecrisma. “Feels good,” he says, hefting them from one hand to the other. He places his domino on his face. Then, in as much time as it takes Jason to blink, he’s on his motorcycle and zooming out of the Cave, a “love you!” floating back to him. Jason sits down, even though he knows the words were meant for John, because it could as easily have been meant for him.</p><p>He looks down at John who is entertaining himself with Jason’s hoodie strings, entirely unaware of the emotional turbulence his dad is feeling. “Oh, baby. I’m so fucked.”</p><p>John gums a smile at him.</p><p>~~~</p><p>John’s about to turn one year old and Jason is helping him walk, holding his hands as he moves around as fast as a baby speedster. They’re in the middle of planning a birthday that went from a small gathering of close friends, to a huge one because Diana insisted since they hadn’t been given a proper baby shower due to the Gotham Quarantine, that meant John’s first birthday needed to make up for it. Alfred has taken to the idea immensely and is coordinating most of the plans, but Jason’s been helping where he can. The ancient furniture in the living room is covered with doodles and party ideas.</p><p>Jason snorts at the image, wondering if Bruce ever thought his Manor would look like this. After all, he took in Dick when he was fifteen, not as a baby. Now the place looks like Babies R’ Us spit up.</p><p>Bruce has been talking about finding a new Robin, letting Jason and Dick patrol on their own. If he does, Jason will have been the shortest-lived Robin, but he finds he’s not entirely opposed to the idea. He still loves being Robin, loves the feeling of fighting crime with Batman, but he’s different now. His priorities have changed, somewhat. Where patrolling with Batman means hunting down crazies like Joker and Riddler, and that’s fine – they keep plotting against Gotham and her citizens, someone has to be there to stop them – Jason watches the gangs, the bad cops, the abusive husbands and the drug dealers who get children hooked, and he finds he’s more interested in the dirty, no-so-glamorous vigilante work. He wants his son to see a city that protects its weakest member, he wants to be the person who can stop the fist before it hits a woman or an omega, when the government can’t or won’t. That’s the kind of person Jason wants to be for his son.</p><p>It also helps that a little brawling feels better to Jason than flying ever has. Flying is Dick’s domain.</p><p>John seems to notice his contemplative nature – probably because Jason has stopped walking behind him – and turns, batting at his face with his chubby little hands. “Dada?”</p><p>“Yeah, baby,” Jason says, leaning down to pick up John and give him a big raspberry on his tummy.</p><p>“Dada, no!” cries John, wriggling and laughing even as Jason peppers his face with kisses. He’s so cute, Jason sometimes thinks he’s going to die from the love that is bursting to get out of his body. His pretty blue eyes are Jason’s favorite thing in the whole world.</p><p>“Dada!” John cries, and a first he doesn’t notice, thinks John’s still talking to him, but when he starts wriggling more towards the door, Jason looks up and finds Dick staring at them. He’s dressed in a blue button down that matches his eyes perfectly and charcoal dress pants. He looks every bit the detective he is – even if he’s only a consultant for the Gotham PD.</p><p>The expression on his face, though, it causes Jason’s heart to take a flying leap ala Grayson and he only hopes Dick plans on catching it.</p><p>“Hi, Johnny!” Dick says brightly, coming into the room to take John from Jason’s arms, swinging him up and around, a tiny little acrobat.</p><p>“Dada!” John cries, and that they’ve gotta work on. It’d be nice to know which <i>Dada</i> John wants at any given moment. He comes back and lands on Dick’s hips, beaming, a perfect score of ten from the judges.</p><p>“Hi, Jay,” Dick follows up, his voice softer, fuller sounding. Jason notes he’s using his omega pheromones, a rare occurrence.</p><p>“Good day at work?” he asks, trying not to shove his blooming hope in Dick’s face, just in case he’s reading everything wrong.</p><p>Dick nods, bites his lip for a moment, and then looks back down at John who is currently fiddling with the buttons on his dad’s shirt and trying to make Jason go weak in the knees by exposing Dick’s chest that is once more sculpted, even if the area right around his nipples is still a little plusher than two years ago, milk-full.</p><p>“Hey, what do you think about it being naptime?” he coos.</p><p>“No!” shouts John. “Home, Dada!”</p><p>“Yeah, I know I just got home. But you, I can tell, are getting tired. I bet you walked a lot today.”</p><p>“Walk!” John says claps his hand. His curls sway with the movement.</p><p>“Yeah, walk,” Dick repeats and he begins moving out of the living room, but he tilts his head, a gesture meant to indicate Jason should follow. He does, happily. “Are you excited for your party, hmm? To see aunties Diana and Kory and Donna?”</p><p>“Donna!” John says, latching on to the last name. Donna is his favorite, something that eternally amuses the woman who has zero interest in children, aside from John.</p><p>“Yeah, and uncle Clark and big Jon. I know you two are buddies.”</p><p>John claps his little hands – then gets distracted by his fingernails. It’s adorable.</p><p>They’re in the master suite now and Dick sets him down in his crib. Jason can feel and smell his pheromones now, the citrus and amber strong, amber being the smell John seems to react to the most, especially at bedtime. Dick’s learned how to use his scent to the best effect and within minutes, John is softly snoring little baby wheezes, his hand clutched around a Robin plushie.</p><p>Jason watches it all happily, content to wait.</p><p>When Dick is sure John’s asleep, he inclines his head to the anteroom space where Jason has spent the last almost year sleeping, close enough to Dick and John if he was needed, but not in Dick’s bed.</p><p>It’s been over a year since he shared Dick’s bed. Not since month eight of his pregnancy. He remembers it fondly, though, Dick too big to fight Jason and so it had been slow, almost like they were a real couple, not just Jason satisfying Dick’s pregnancy libido.</p><p>Dick looks at him now and seems almost shy. He looks around the space, takes in Jason’s rumpled sofa bed he hadn’t gotten to this morning because Dick had to go into work and John was feeling fussy. His eyes come back to Jason’s. His hands go to his pockets and when they do, something crinkles.</p><p>Dick appears to steel himself and clears his throat. He pulls whatever crinkled out of his pants. He waves it and Jason sees it’s a medicine packet.</p><p>“So,” Dick starts. “I’m coming up on my second heat since John was born. I could keep taking the suppressants, like I did the first go around but…”</p><p>He steps closer to Jason. Jason’s grown in this last year and Dick’s not as tall in comparison as he once was. He reaches his free hand out, his fingertips ghosting over Jason’s face, down his neck. He steps in closer, takes a deep breath, scenting.</p><p>“I was wondering if you’d spend my heat with me,” he spills out, his thumb resting right on Jason’s pulse under his ear.</p><p>Jason shoves all the emotions that come bubbling up at Dick’s words so that he can calmly ask, “Yeah? You’d want to do that?” He’s flying off a building now, no net, no grapple. Only Dick can catch him.</p><p>“Yeah. I do. I’ve been an ass and pushed you away this whole time when all you’ve done is support and, and love me. I’ve been thinking lately, with this coming up, with John turning one, and I realized that at some point, I fell in love with you, too.”</p><p>There it is, a net so large Jason could never miss it. </p><p>He blinks. Goddamn his tear ducts. He laughs inside his head at himself. If anyone saw them right now, they’d definitely assume Jason was the omega of the two.</p><p>“Then yes,” he says, voice a little wet. “I’ll spend your heat with you.” He clears his throat, wipes at his face, sees Dick’s indulgent smile. “I’ll treat you so good, babe.”</p><p>“I know,” Dick says. “I know, little wing. You always do.”</p><p>~~~</p><p>Dick keeps his birth control in, but when his heat hits, it hits hard and it’s a good thing Raven and Garth said they no issue taking John for a week because they stay in bed for five whole days this time.</p><p>In one of their more lucid times, as they consume the snacks Alfred pre-planned, Jason runs his hand through Dick’s soft waves where they rest on his chest. He considers and then shares.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking about quitting being Robin.”</p><p>Dick moves his head so his chin rests on Jason’s chest but otherwise waits.</p><p>“Not giving up the night job. Just…changing. Finding myself, like you did with Nightwing.”</p><p>Dick hums, his scent particularly citrus in nature, satisfaction radiating off of him. Jason traces his lips with a finger. “What does Bruce think?”</p><p>“He mentioned it, I think, to let me know I could. But I haven’t said anything about it to him. Wanted to discuss it with you first. You’re my partner after all.”</p><p>Dick’s eyelids drop, go heated.</p><p>Jason’s alpha senses preen under the look and he finds himself coiling his scent around Dick’s. He runs his hands over Dick’s bare skin, watches his muscles flex and roll under the attention.</p><p>“Yeah? I can call you that?”</p><p>Dick moves, sliding about his body sensuously until his cunt is brushing against Jason’s quickly hardening cock. He reaches back and holds Jason still, lowering himself down. This seems to be his favorite position; Jason thinks it’s because he gets to show off, talent and body.</p><p>He begins to lift himself, just an inch or two before falling back down, and he keeps it up, slow and hot. His fingers dig into Jason’s chest, tweak his nipple, before coming up to rest on Jason’s throat.</p><p>“Yes, call me that. Call me whatever you want, Jay. I made my choice and I’m yours now. You smell like mate and I’m—” Dicks head tilts back as he loses himself in a pulse of pleasure, having found his g-spot with Jason’s cock. “Fuck, Jay. I love you.”</p><p>Jason hears the blood pound in his ear and it’s like an alpha cat roaring inside of him. <i>Mine, mine</i>, he thinks. “Mine, mine, Dick, babe,” he says, fucking up into Dick a little harder. <i>Mate</i>, his body cries. <i>Home</i>, his senses tell him.</p><p>They keep going like that, hot and fevered, but still slow, still tender, even as Dick begins spewing out his name, <i>Jason, Jay, Jay, fill me up, love, Jay, so good, mine, Jay</i>, until he comes, so tight on his knot, he can barely breathe as he too orgasms, come spilling out hot and hard, filling Dick up like he asked.</p><p>Later, still stuffed with Jason’s knot, Dick looks at him, hair sticking to his forehead from sweat, smelling of come and sex and Jason and says, “I think it’s a good idea. I’ll be here for you, whoever you decide to be.”</p><p>
  <i>Mate. Love. Mine.</i>
</p><p>They both fall asleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dick hands a slice of apple to John who is sitting at the informal kitchen table working on multiplication tables in between his crunching. The five-year-old smiles toothily at him, shoving the fruit into his mouth before focusing on his math, chubby hand clutching a pencil.</p><p>Dick finishes cutting the apple, placing half on a plate with peanut butter and the rest on a plate with cheese and roast beef for himself. He slides into the seat beside John, amazed at how tired he is. He’s almost regretting sending Alfred out to the garden for a quiet cup of tea and some reading time, except he’s perfectly capable of making a snack and helping John, thank you very much. Alfred’s already been doing more than ever, balancing watching John, helping Bruce as always, and decorating the newest refurbished manor room for the nursery when Jason lets him. Not that he ever so much as sighs a complaint, but they all know Alfred is reaching his limit, in age if not skill, even if the former spy and number one Batman caretaker will never admit it.</p><p>Lily kicks his ribs and Dick grimaces, quickly shoving food into his mouth. Funny that the baby they decided to have is the one giving him problems. He suspects Lily knows she’s wanted and that nothing she does will change that, so she makes her father as aware of her as possible. Princess.</p><p>He thinks about the soft purple paint covering the walls in her room, the canopy netting set over her crib, the <i>obscene</i> amount of baby things they have this time around that they didn’t for John, and snorts to himself; princess indeed. Especially if Jason has anything to say about it.</p><p>Dick knows: he’s never let on that the day they found out Lily was a girl, that night he woke up to Jason wrapped around his belly cooing at her, telling her how much she was loved, that she was a miracle, that she was the rightful princess of Gotham. He lets Jason have that moment, since Dick’s the one who gets everything else with her right now. Good and bad. He takes another bite of cheese.</p><p>Jason sweeps into the kitchen then, grabbing a Gatorade from the fridge and downing half of it. He’s sweaty from training, his muscle tank stretched across his chest but hanging open on the sides so that Dick can see his frankly envy-inducing abs. His shorts hang low on his waist which means he was likely lifting or boxing instead of sparring with Tim. Jason had taken awhile to come to terms with Tim replacing him as Robin, but in the last year, having taken on a new name and mantle as the Red Hood, he’s become closer with the teen, more of a mentor than Dick ever let himself be to Jason. It’s sweet, watching how Jason interacts with his son now and seeing how Jason will likely train and shape John when he’s old enough via Tim.</p><p>He’s startled out of his ruminations of Jason’s patrol-ready body by Lily kicking his ribs again. He sighs internally and eats another bite of apple, this time with a little extra crunch. His libido is only just coming back after the first trimester that had been filled with morning sickness, but now Lily seems determined to interrupt them.</p><p>Jason puts down the bottle and wipes at his lips with the back of his hand. He never did get much taller than he’d been at nineteen, only another two inches at most, so he’s still shorter than Dick, still looks less like an alpha for anyone who still believed in a linkage between masculinity and second gender status, but as he leans over Dick’s head to ruffle John’s hair and then turns his green-eyed gaze on Dick, Dick finds himself getting a little wet and for once it’s not because Lily is sitting on his bladder.</p><p>Jason bends a bit more and brushes his lips against Dick’s before he collapses in the chair next to him, legs spread so that his knee touches Dick’s.</p><p>“Can you believe the kid is still going? Up all night with B, and now he’s on his tenth mile or something. I’m getting old, Dickie.”</p><p>Dick snorts. “You’re twenty-five, Jason.”</p><p>“It’s the being a dad thing. Ages you.” Jason smiles at John who looks up, blue eyes bright.</p><p>“Dad, when can I start training?” their son asks, setting his pencil down. He’s such a well-behaved boy, not at all like Dick was at his age, instead making a ruckus around the circus tents, sneaking into the animal cages and such. Dick figures it’s Alfred’s influence. “I want to be like Uncle Tim.”</p><p>Jason grins, eyes sparkling, while Dick tries to maintain a firm look. Yes, John will join the family business, but he’s <i>five</i>. It doesn’t matter how cute he is, asking. Besides, Dick needs someone to keep him company when the rest of the family leaves him to go on patrol and stop crime while Dick is stuck feeling like a blob who can barely do a sit up these days. Fuck, it’s only month five of nine, too.</p><p>“You’ll get to, John,” he says. “But you’re far too young.”</p><p>“Uncle Tim would be careful, though.”</p><p>“I know he would; I let you two play all the time, don’t I?”</p><p>John nods, his brown curls shaking. Dick will never get over how he looks like an exact replica of Jason, but with Dick’s eyes.</p><p>Dick makes a motion and John leaves his seat, comes over and crawls into Dick’s lap with Jason’s assistance. “Is it wrong for me to want you to be my baby a little longer?” he asks, stroking his son’s hair, sudden emotion choking his throat. Fucking hormones.</p><p>“No, Daddy.” He pauses, tilting his little head. He manages to look so young and also so grown-up doing that. His eyes reflect the intelligence Bruce is helping nurture through puzzles and mystery novels and games. “But I’m always gonna be your baby, right? Me ‘n Lily?” he asks, placing his little hand on Dick’s growing stomach.</p><p>Lily kicks, and this time, it’s right where John’s hand is, like she moved so that her brother knows she’s there.</p><p>Dick laughs, a little wet chuckle. “You’re not going to say that when you’re sixteen and you want to sneak off on patrol or with some other teen you like, but yeah, you and Lily will always be our babies. We love you so much, John.” He presses a kiss into John’s curls, trying to hide his wet eyes from Jason.</p><p>Jason, his big bruiser of a partner who has the gangs in Gotham scared, who everyone knows as the second scariest alpha next to Batman. He may not be exceptionally tall, but his punches are as strong as Batman’s, his growls as intimidating, and the gangs have come to appreciate that fact. Jason, of course, catches Dick’s unshed tears because after five years together, and the first two so fucking hard between them, no one knows Dick as well; not Donna, not Bruce, no one.</p><p>He leans forward, hand on Dick’s knee, and presses a kiss to the side of his mouth. Then he presses another to his lips, chaste. Then another and another, until finally Dick opens his mouth, sighing happily into the kiss. It reminds him of that heat, the one where they’d made the decision to try for another baby, Dick having been off the Wayne-made suppressants for a month at that point. It started this soft, this tentative. Dick had been as terrified as he was excited. It wasn’t the first time they’d had sex since John, obviously, but the intent had been different. Given John had been an unknowing accident, it was strange to make the decision to put what he still considered a <i>male</i> body through the process of bearing a child again.</p><p>As the kiss continues – memories strong of that night, of the way Jason’s knot had caught while he had three fingers up Dick’s ass, heats the only time Jason fucked Dick’s cunt – he feels slick build and wet his underwear and he knows Jason can smell it, based on the way his hand tightens on Dick’s knee, the tiniest change to his breathing, but then a small hand wriggles in between their lips forcing them apart.</p><p>“No,” John pouts.</p><p>Jason laughs and grabs John from Dick’s lap, scooping him up and over his head so that he can climb on Jason’s back and generally treat him like a jungle gym.</p><p>He sobers a bit, though he’s still smiling, pressing tickles into John’s skin where he can reach, his laughter shrieking, but they’re used to it, and says, “It passed today.”</p><p>The A/B/O Medical Rights Bill. It means now that unless a Gothamite chooses, they don’t have to reveal their second gender; not on a job application, not for housing, nothing except to doctors and doctors cannot share that information with anyone, including the government. Bruce Wayne has led the charge via his lawyers, and given he’d been ‘happy’ to come out as an alpha, it helped cement the idea that alphas should – and were – care takers, rather than mindless knotheads, and that an alpha was willing to defend the rights of betas and omegas, lent the bill weight where an omega sponsor would not have.</p><p>“Good,” Dick says, reaching in to tickle his son’s exposed belly as he does a flip around Jason’s broad shoulders. “It’s not enough, though.”</p><p>“No. But you know B and Clark won’t stop. The Justice League won’t stop; it doesn’t matter that no members so far have been affected.”</p><p>Not yet. Dick’s got a standing invite as Nightwing once he’s off paternity leave and back in shape next year.</p><p>“I know the assholes in DC, the legal team of Luthor won’t stop, either. All those non-Gothamites out there, clutching their pearls, afraid to have a son who might bear children, or a daughter who doesn’t have to, of biology gifting someone what they’ve wanted and felt all along. Hell, we only legalized same-sex marriage ten years ago and now we’ve got a whole other set of issues to fight for,” he says.</p><p>Jason’s eyes pierce his. “We won’t stop, Dick. We won’t stop fighting for our kids and we won’t stop fighting for Gotham – not crime, not gender status. It’s what we do. And I know I’m gonna die fighting to make Gotham a place for John and Lily to be who they want, date who they want, to dress up like crazy vigilantes and fight evil.”</p><p>“Whee! Crime!” shouts John who is currently attempting a child’s form of pull-ups off Jason’s arm.</p><p>“Yeah. Crime,” Jason says, sing-song, pulling John in and giving him a raspberry on his stomach to the sound of pealing giggles. “Now go back to your math, okay? I know you’re gonna want to watch Frozen again and Tim will only sit with you if you let him know how you got smarter today.”</p><p>“Yes!” cries John with a fist pump in the air. He quickly slides back in his seat and ignores his parents as he crunches on another apple slice covered in sticky peanut butter and taps his pencil’s eraser against his temple, squinting his eyes as he stares at the paper in concentration.</p><p>Dick grabs Jason’s hand and pulls him out of his seat, bringing him towards the French doors that open out to the section of the garden that bears Martha Wayne’s roses.</p><p>Jason looks up at him, one hand falling to Dick’s hip, the other to his belly. Dick tugs on the curls overhanging his forehead. Jason’s lips tilt, almost concerned, but still resting. Dick wishes he could put him on his knees, feel those big lips on his cock. Later. If Lily lets them.</p><p>“You alright, babe?” he asks when Dick says nothing.</p><p>Dick smiles; he remembers when he hated that endearment. Only ever heard it directed at women, in that sleazy tone Jason thought made him look cool. But Jason was nineteen then and in the five years since Nightshade’s gene-altering gas, he’s come to love it, hear it only directed at him, and it’s definitely lost its frat boy tone. It now sends tendrils of warmth through him.</p><p>He hums in the back of his throat, leaning into Jason for a moment, enjoying the way his thick arms can still reach around to his back. They won’t much longer, if Dick’s pregnancy with John is indicative of anything. He’d ballooned in month six, carrying around a perfect beach ball shaped belly filled with a baby.</p><p>“No dying. Not for anything,” he breathes.</p><p>Jason stares at him, understanding. “I’ll do my best. You too.”</p><p>They stare at each other for a few moments, breathing in sync. Then, Dick turns back over his shoulder. “John? Will you get that box we talked about earlier for Daddy?”</p><p>“Now?” John asks, eyes wide. He knows what this means. He’s so good at keeping secrets, Dick’s almost afraid. It’ll certainly help in the family business, but seriously. He wasn’t kidding about the thought of John at sixteen; they’re going to have to get every Bat – including Babs – on plan to keep an eye on their son.</p><p>He nods, and John zooms off.</p><p>“What’s up?” Jason asks, confused.</p><p>“Just wait,” Dick says.</p><p>John is back in less than a minute, cheeks red and panting. “Here you go, Daddy!” He shoves a small black box into Dick’s hand.</p><p>“Is that—?” Jason starts to ask, and then he goes quiet as Dick gets down on his knees – not an easy feat currently.</p><p>Once situated, he opens the box and then takes John’s hand, holding out until the last minute to look up, suddenly scared of rejection despite the baby growing in his belly that speaks of commitment from Jason. It’s just that, he doesn’t even know Jason’s thoughts on marriage, not after that fight five years ago. Maybe he’s changed his mind, doesn’t want it, doesn’t want that kind of legal attachment.</p><p>He kisses his son’s soft round cheek and then looks up, holding out the box with the thick platinum band while balancing on one knee. “John and I want to know if his dad will marry his daddy and make this family official.”</p><p>Jason’s face is hard to read; his lips pursed, eyes flat. It makes anxiety flash through Dick once more and he grips his son’s hand a little tighter than he probably should. John pets his face, sensing his father’s discomfort. Lily trembles, too; not quite a kick, but a roll or something.</p><p>“I, I—” Jason stammers after a moment. He smells…giddy. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move. <i>Don’t</i>,” he says, forcefully over his shoulder as he’s already running out of the kitchen.</p><p>What can Dick do but wait? He’s on his knees in the kitchen on a rare bright day in Gotham, having just heard good news about their fight against discrimination and John is sweet beside him, petting him with his small hand, but the man he’s in love with, wants to marry after all the shit they’ve been through, has just run out on him.</p><p>He’s about to heft himself off the floor, doing his best not to cry but these <i>fucking</i> hormones, when Jason returns. His grin is a mile wide and his eyes are shining emerald. He’s holding a maroon velvet box. Dick’s jaw drops. He reaches down and pulls Dick up off the floor, keeping him wrapped in a half hug once he is.</p><p>“Dick Grayson,” he laughs, eyes twinkling in the sunlight. “Will you marry <i>me</i>?” He opens the box one-handed to reveal a golden band. “Goddammit,” he continues, laughing. “I can’t believe you beat me at this too, Golden Boy. Always gotta be perfect. But yes. I’ll marry you, Grayson. If you’ll have me.” </p><p>Dick says nothing for a moment, thinking it’s only fair since Jason literally ran out on his proposal, but then he flings himself the all of four inches separating them and kisses Jason as best he can when the other man is still laughing, and he has to detach his son’s hand from his in order to wrap it around his partner’s neck.</p><p>“Yes,” he says, pulling back to breathe and answer, feeling way lighter than he should while pregnant. “Fuck you, yes.”</p><p>Then they’re kissing again while John stands there smiling at them with his crooked grin, holding Dick’s joggers in one hand and Jason’s shorts in the other.</p><p>“I love you so much,” Jason rumbles, voice pitched low and quiet. “Always have, since the first time I saw you soar across the skyline when I was fourteen. I’ll never let you go, babe. Never let anything happen to you.”</p><p>There’s a hint of alpha tone in his voice, but Dick knows it isn’t about Jason asserting himself. That claim was made five years ago even if Dick didn’t want to acknowledge it. It’s not about Jason thinking Dick can’t defend himself. The tone makes him melt and he scents at Jason’s neck, dipping those two inches down so he can nose under his ear, get his warm scent: leather and salt and honey. It makes him purr, makes him slick his underwear again. God, he wants so much, now that he knows he has it, that Jason will always be his alpha.</p><p>“Whoa, you two. It’s like a sauna in here. And by that, I mean one of those saunas where all the men sit and gossip for hours and it smells like sweaty old dudes.”</p><p>Dick separates from Jason, not entirely letting go, but enough that he’s not scenting him anymore. He tries to pull back on his own omega pheromones so that they’re not as strong.</p><p>Tim’s standing there, workout tights and long sleeve shirt on, hair messy and falling into his eyes. The beta is holding his nose even as a grin peeks out from under his hand. “Celebrating, are we?”</p><p>Jason harrumphs like an old man and then takes the gold band from his box and grabs Dick’s hand, sliding it on. “Yes. Goldie decided he’s sticking around for a while.”</p><p>Dick rolls his eyes and grabs the two boxes to place them on the counter, pulling out the ring he has for Jason and returning the favor, slipping it on Jason’s finger. It fits perfectly. “Yeah, well, Jason decided to run out in the middle of my proposal, so he’s lucky I’m pregnant and hormonal or my answer might have been no.”</p><p>Tim laughs. “As if you’d ever say no to him after all this.” His hand waves in the air, vague. “He’s devoted to you and you like him enough to have another mini Bat. Plus, he’s the only alpha I think that exists who wouldn’t feel emasculated by you kicking his ass, so.” He crouches down. “Hey, John. Let’s let your parents have some time together now that they’re engaged, and you and I can go watch a movie?”</p><p>“Frozen!” yells John.</p><p>“I should have known,” Tim moans, hefting John up onto his hip. “Hey, want to go find Alfred? I bet he’ll join us.”</p><p>“Alfie!” John shouts, clinging his arms around Tim’s neck. “Bye dads!”</p><p>“Congrats. Seriously,” Tim says, eyes a warm blue. He passes them and opens the door to the garden, off to find Alfred.</p><p>“Well,” Jason mumbles, closing the space between them once more, teeth scraping across Dick’s neck. “Seems we got some free time curtesy of our built-in babysitter. How are you feeling about a bit of engaged sex?”</p><p>Dick’s hormones are answering with a raging <i>yes</i>, so he simply tilts his head, lets his scent speak for him as Jason bends him back slightly so he can kiss him hard.</p><p>“Mm, fuck yeah, babe. Let’s go make another baby.”</p><p>Dick trails after him, holding back laughter at Jason’s ridiculous comment, because Jason’s alpha voice is making him drip, the baby is being quiet, and he wants Jason’s cock up his ass right this minute, so he simply follows, looking forward to everything yet to come.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Now with ADORABLE <a href="https://cherrymiko-art.tumblr.com/post/617010694333841408/read-a-fic-where-jason-was-sweet-talking-to-dicks">art</a> by <a href="https://cherrymiko-art.tumblr.com/">CherryMiko</a>. Check it out and give them lots of love! &lt;3</p><p>Follow and chat with me <a href="http://mf-luder-xf.tumblr.com">on tumblr</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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